Harry Collingwood

Harry Collingwood was the pseudonym of William Joseph Cosens Lancaster (23 May 1843 – 10 June 1922), a British civil engineer and novelist who wrote over 40 boys' adventure books, almost all of them in a nautical setting.

Early life

Collingwood was the eldest son of master mariner Captain William Lancaster (1813 – (1861 – 1871)) and Anne, née Cosens (c. 1820 – 9 October 1898). His birth certificate shows that he was born in Weymouth, Dorset on 23 May 1843 at 9:30am at Concord Place. The Oxford Dictionary Of National Biography notes that most references, except his birth certificate, give his date of birth as 1851. His application for Associate Membership of the Institution of Civil Engineers gives his birth date as 23 May 1846.

Collingwood was the first of three children for the couple. He was eight when his sister Ada Louise (c. 1852 – 8 January 1929)

was born and 12 when his sister Sarah Anne (1 June 1853 – 27 December 1941) was born. Both women were shown as draper's assistants in the 1871 census. By then Collingwood's father had died, and his mother continued to live with her daughters until her death. Ada never married and lived with her sister after leaving the paternal home. Sarah Anne married Mathew Smellie in St Michaels, Toxteth, Liverpool, Lancashire on 30 June 1880. The couple had one child, Harold Ernest Smellie (11 April 1881 – 30 April 1961). Harold was the nephew who registered Collingwood's death in 1922. Collingwood's mother died at his home in Norwood on 9 October 1898, with her daughter Ada Louise as the executrix of her effects of £1,308 11s 11d. When Ada Louise died on 8 January 1929, her widowed sister Sarah Ann (with whom she was living) was the executrix for her effects of £1,907 16s 8d. Harold was the executor for the effects (£4,574, 15s 1d) of his mother Sarah Ann when she died on 27 December 1942.