Edmund Collins

Early life Collins was born in Braidwood, New South Wales in 1931, the youngest of five children in an Irish-Catholic family, and grew up in Bermagui. His mother died when he was five.

At the age of 16, Collins moved to Sydney and joined the police service as a cadet, before becoming a probationary constable at 19.

Priesthood In 1953, shortly before he turned 23, Collins attended a day of recollection at Kensington Monastery with a group of Catholic police; it was here that he first felt drawn to the priesthood. The following year, aged 24, After completing his theological studies, he was ordained a priest in 1963, at age 32, as part of the Australian papal tour. While in Alice Springs the Pope gave a speech to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, which inspired Collins to encourage Indigenous Catholics to express their Aboriginality within their Catholic faith, allowing the use of didgeridoos, clapsticks and smoking ceremonies as part of Mass.

Collins was a public advocate for Indigenous people who were taken from their families as children.

Collins retired in 2007.

Ted Collins Village, a housing complex opened in 2011 and run by the St Vincent de Paul Society in Darwin, is named after him.

Cyclone Tracy recording Collins was in Darwin when it was struck by Cyclone Tracy in 1974. When the cyclone hit, he switched on a tape recorder, and recorded the sounds of the storm. The recording is now in the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, as part of the Cyclone Tracy exhibit.