William Collingwood (1855-1928) & Maria Elizabeth Lermit (1865-1956)
William Collingwood was born on 18 August 1855 in London, the son of George Collingwood and Emily Genn Saul. He grew up in Stratford St Mary, Suffolk after his father retired there from the East India Company in the 1860s. William attended the Grammar School at Dedham, a short distance away across the Stour valley.
He was present at the death of his father in 1871.
ln 1872 he began his technical training as an engineer as a pupil under Mr. W. Adams at Bow on the North London Railway for two years, and afterwards at Stratford on the Great Eastern Railway for three years. After he completed his pupillage he worked at Messrs. West’s Gas Improvement Company at Maidstone.
In 1878 he joined the East Indian Railway as Assistant Locomotive Superintendent, and subsequently rose to the rank of District Locomotive Superintendent.
Maria Elizabeth Lermit was the daughter of Gerald Thompson Lermit and Elizabeth Henrietta Downes. She was born on 24 February 1865 in Dedham, Essex, where her father was headmaster at the Royal Grammar School.
In 1879, William’s elder sister, Emily Collingwood, married Arthur Major Lermit, who was a contemporary of William at Dedham Grammar School – and this may have been how William and Maria Elizabeth remained in contact.
On 23 June 1887, William Collingwood married Maria Elizabeth Lermit at St Florence, near Tenby, where her father was then rector having moved from Dedham in 1884.
William and Maria Elizabeth’s eldest two children were born in India – Marjory on 25 April 1888 and Carlton on 24 October 1889. They lived in Allahabad, where the children were baptised at All Saints Cathedral.
The family left India in 1892, by when William had been Chief Locomotive Superintendent in charge of the Allahabad district, covering some 900 miles of line for the greater part of his service in India, and he took on the role of general manager of the Vulcan Foundry at Newton-le-Willows, Lancashire.
Their second son, Sydney, was born on 10 July 1892 at Winchester, and their three youngest children were born in Newton-le-Willows – Gwendolen (9 October 1894), Ursula (2 March 1898), and Gerald (27 August 1902).
The family lived at Wargrave House in Newton-le-Willows, and then at Mere House. In the 1910s, William and Maria Elizabeth also bought Grove House, Dedham, and both houses are listed as their address.
The Vulcan Foundry had been established in 1832 to produce girders but then started to build locomotives. In 1852, the first locomotives to run in India were supplied by the Vulcan Foundry to the Great Indian Peninsula Railway; in 1870 the company produced the first locomotive to run in Japan for the Imperial Japanese Railways. By 1898, the foundry was the fourth largest locomotive builder in Britain and had produced 1,500 locomotives, two thirds of which had been exported. The company saw a large increase in production under the management of William Collingwood, particularly for the export market to India and South America. He was described as having “a genius for engineering, and many improvements in the modern heavy engine are due to his inspiration”.
In 1912 William was appointed Managing Director. Apart from his engineering associations he also took a keen interest in public affairs, and for many years was a member of the Lancashire County Council. In 1907 he was appointed Justice of the Peace. He was elected President of the Manchester Engineering Employers’ Federation in 1913. He was a member of the Constitutional Club, St Stephen’s Club and the Argentine Club. He also served as one of the original members of the Central Finance Committee of the Church of England.
The 3,000th locomotive was produced in 1914, and in World War I the foundry manufactured shells, gun mountings, components for mine-sweepers and “crane tanks”. William was chairman of the Manchester and District Armaments Output Committee. He was created a Knight of the Order of the British Empire in 1917.
On 13 October 1910, William and Maria Elizabeth’s eldest daughter, Marjory, married Bernard Stephen Townroe at St Peter’s church, Newton-le-Willows.
Their eldest son, Carlton, who had been educated at Charterhouse School (where he was active in shooting and boxing), was an apprentice engineer at Armstrong and Whitworth in Manchester before joining the Vulcan Foundry as assistant manager. In 1913 Carlton married May Cavendish.
William and Maria Elizabeth were closely associated with the church of All Saints at Newton-le-Willows. In the 1890s it became clear that an additional church was required in the western part of St Peter’s parish. It was a donation by William of £1,000 that gave the impetus to the efforts to build All Saints, and on 8 March 1913 William cut the turf for the start of building. The church was completed by October 1914, and, after William donated an addition sum of £700 to inaugurate an Endowment Fund for the Vicar’s Stipend, the church was consecrated by Bishop Chavasse of Liverpool. In addition William provided the Iron Railings surrounding the Church and site, and Maria Elizabeth gifted mats and kneelers.
The church was dedicated to All Saints apparently because when William and Maria Elizabeth had lived in Allahabad they had attended All Saints Cathedral.
William was Church Warden and Treasurer of the Building Fund.
Pevsner’s Lancashire: Liverpool and the Southwest notes: “All Saints, Crow Lane. 1913-14, by William & Segar Owens. Minor Perp, without the intended W tower, or transepts. The architects also designed the high altar. – Stained Glass -. E Window, Strigley & Hunt, 1929.”
The East window is in memory of Sir William Collingwood.
With the outbreak of the war in 1914, William and Maria Elizabeth’s sons joined up.
Carlton, who had been a member of the South Lancashire Territorial Regiment until 1913, re-joined on 3 August 1914 and was commissioned as Lieutenant.
Sydney was commissioned as 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery on 9 June 1915. In October 1915, 1st Lieutenant Sydney Collingwood married Charlotte Annie (Nancy), the daughter of Col. J C Oughterson of Wimbledon.
Carlton went to France in early 1915 but was invalided home in April. He returned to work for a while at the Vulcan Foundry until bad health hospitalised him. In April 1916, having recovered, he returned to the front as a Captain in the South Lancashire regiment.
On 7 August 1916, as part of an attack on Guillemont village, Captain Carlton Collingwood led one half of the Pioneer parties digging communication trenches to the newly captured positions – this work had to be undertaken in the open, swept by machine gun and shell fire. He was wounded at about 4:30 am on 8 August 1916.
Carlton Collingwood died upon reaching the dressing station and was buried at Dive Copse Cemetery.
The brother of his wife, May (Cavandish) Collingwood, was killed in the same week.
The church of All Saints at Newton-le-Willows contains several memorials to Capt. Carlton Collingwood of the South Lancashire regiment. The church organ is dedicated to the those to lost their lives in the war. The church also has the battlefield cross and photographs as described on the Imperial War Museum website. He is also remembered on the Dedham war memorial and on the grave of his parents in Dedham churchyard.
During and after the war, William and Maria Elizabeth appeared to have spent more time in Dedham, where William was also a church warden.
According to the Motorsport Magazine, William owned “an 18/25 Renault limousine 1912 model (M2040) and a 1915 15/20 Studebaker open tourer (LK 9460) with gearbox and axle combined. The Renault charmed him, while the Studebaker infuriated him, for it was always breaking down. When it did behave properly it was sold.” A car owned by William, but driven by his chauffeur hit and killed a child who ran into the street in Newton.
Maria Elizabeth also drove: in January 1928 she was stopped by the police and found to be driving without a licence; to this her immediate response, quoted in Court, was “Oh, dear, I’ve held one since 1912” (The Essex Newsman). That licence was found to have expired in 1926 and she was fined £1.
Dedham church was the location for the wedding of their younger daughters. Gwendoline (wearing a veil of Honiton lace lent by her mother) married Capt. Frederick Walley, MC Royal Engineers, on 5 July 1918. On 10 January 1923 Ursula married Robert Keith Arbuthnot, MC of the Black Watch; Girl Guides from the area (in whom Ursula took a deep interest) formed a guard of honour.
Their youngest son, Gerald, married Joan, daughter of Sir Arnold and Lady Gridley at Madras Cathedral in November 1929.
In October 1928 William retired as managing director of the Vulcan Foundry. He died on 2 November 1928 and was buried in Dedham churchyard.
Maria Elizabeth continued to be a figure in Dedham life. In 1931 she opened the Annual Missionary Sale at the village hall, saying she was “very pleased to help in this effort to spreading the Kingdom of God in other lands”. In 1937 she invited some 70 old people for tea at the Hewitt Memorial Hall in Dedham to commemorate the Coronation.
Maria Elizabeth died on 7 May 1956 at Dedham.
The grave of Sir William Collingwood and Maria Elizabeth Lermit
In 1958, a service was held at Dedham for the dedication of two oak candlesticks in memory of Sir William and Maria Elizabeth Collingwood; these still stand either side of the altar in the church.
William and Maria Elizabeth’s children:
- Marjory Collingwood (1888-1966) married Bernard Stephen Townroe.
- Carlton Collingwood (1889-1916) married May Campbell Carnegie Cavendish; they had one son William Alexander Carlton Collingwood, born 12 February 1915.
- Brigadier Sydney Collingwood (1892-1986), CBE, CMG, MC of the Royal Artillery. He married first Charlotte Annie Oughterson, with whom he had a two sons and a daughter; his daughter, Elizabeth Evelyn (Liza) Collingwood (1924-2006), an actress known as Elizabeth Colvin married the Hon Gerald Lascelles.
- Gwendolen Collingwood (1894-1984) married Frederick Seymour Whalley, who had been trained as a locomotive engineer at the Vulcan Foundry. He worked in both India and Africa before coming general manager of the Vulcan Foundry in 1923, then managing director in 1929, vice-chairman in 1941, and chairman in 1946.
- Ursula Collingwood (1898-1989) married Robert Keith Arbuthnot (Major-General, CB, CBE, DSO, MC; later honorary colonel of the Black Watch regiment; 15th Viscount Arbuthnot; Lord Lieutenant of Kincardineshire)
- Gerald Collingwood (1902-1979) married Joan Gridley. Gerald also trained as a chartered mechanical engineer and was also managing director of the Vulcan Foundry.