Septimus Collinson

Septimus Collinson (11 September 1739 – 24 January 1827) was an English churchman and cleric, provost of Queen's College, Oxford from 1796 for the rest of his life.

Early life He was the seventh son of Joseph and Agnes Collinson, born at Gotree (Gawtree), near Hunsonby, Cumberland. He was brought up at Great Musgrave, Westmorland, where his parents had purchased a small estate. He spent a year 1758–9 teaching there as an usher. He matriculated in 1759 at The Queen's College, Oxford, graduating B.A. in 1763 and M.A. in 1767. He was ordained deacon in 1767 and priest in 1768.

Cleric In 1774 Collinson was made rector of Earnshill, a very small parish and sinecure. He became a Fellow of Queen's College in 1777. In 1778 he was presented to the rectories of Dowlish Wake and Dowlish West, Somerset; The presentation belonged to the Speke family of Jordans, Ashill, Somerset.

Collinson graduated B.D. in 1792, and D.D. in 1793. For some years he was one of the city lecturers at Oxford. In 1794 Collinson accepted the college living of Holwell, Dorset, but remained there only about two years.

Collinson's lectures on the Thirty-nine Articles, though admired at the time of their delivery, were not printed. He was a frequent preacher before the university. He died at the college lodge on 24 January 1827. Collinson as Provost of Queen's was ex officio a governor of St Bees School in Cumberland. From 1811, Collinson set about improving the school, from the point of staff and finances.

As Provost, on the death of headmaster John Barnes, Collinson appointed the Rev. William Wilson, a Queen's graduate from Kendal who after ordination as priest in 1808 had become a curate at Colne Engaine in Essex. Wilson looked into the details of a mineral rights lease, affecting coal from the school grounds, that had been granted in the first half of the 18th century to Sir James Lowther, 4th Baronet. This was a sensitive matter, considering that William Lowther, 1st Earl of Lonsdale, one of the governors, was from the Lowther family. Elected a Fellow of Queen's College in 1815, Wilson left the school for Oxford in mid-1817.

Collinson left money to found a free school at Great Musgrave, to be run on the monitorial system. Dr Collinson's Trust is now a charity. A school and residence were built on the common at Langrigg, near Great Musgrave, with extra money donated by two nephews, and timber given by Sir Christopher John Musgrave, 9th Baronet, a cleric, of the Hartley Castle baronets. His nephew John Collinson preached a sermon in 1829 on for the first appointment of a schoolmaster. A monument commemorating SeptimusCollinson was placed on the north wall of the nave of St Theobald's Church, Great Musgrave.

Collinson also had revived the rushbearing custom at Great Musgrave and Warcop.