George Collison
Encyclopedia
George Collison was an English Congregationalist and educator associated with Hackney Academy or Hackney College, which became part of New College London
- itself part of the University of London
.
, Yorkshire
, on 6 January 1772, and became articled to a solicitor in Bridlington
. Taking a keen interest in the local Independent Chapel, he became an early Sunday school teacher, and in 1792 decided to give up law and train full-time as a minister at Hoxton College near London. In 1797 he settled close to London in the village of Walthamstow
in Essex
to carry out pastoral duties, becoming the minister of Marsh Street Independent (Congregational
) chapel, in whose grounds he was eventually buried. He undertook this ministerial role whilst also tutoring at Hoxton - until ill health led him to give up the latter in 1801. Detached from Hoxton, he was sought after by other educationalists, and was attracted to an offer to become the founding President and first tutor of a new theological institution, the Hackney Academy. This was to be based on the non-denominational principles George Collison was already familiar with, in his early associations with the London Missionary Society
.
and the Independent
Rev. George Collison, with their associates, the Rev. Matthew Wilks of the Tabernacle, Moorfields
(a founder of the LMS), and the Rev. Rowland Hill
of Surrey Chapel
. They secured a bequest of £10,000 from wealthy Homerton resident, Charles Townsend, enabling the college to open, following some rebuilding works, in the former house of the Rev. John Eyre in Well Street, Hackney
village, in 1803. Its students lived here in premises converted from old stable buildings until the freehold was bought in 1843 and more extensive building work could be undertaken.
On taking up the Presidency of the Hackney Academy in 1803, George Collison continued some of his pastoral duties at Walthamstow, but was succeeded in similar work for a small congregation he had recently gathered in Hackney at the Well Street Chapel in Hackney. Here, his successor, the Rev. Mr Hughes, inherited a rapidly growing interest locally in Independent worship, and his congregation grew so rapidly that little time passed before a larger Independent chapel (Trinity Chapel) had to be built in nearby Devonshire Road. George Collison found a philanthropic use for his original chapel; it became the Well Street Chapel Free School, established in 1807 with generous endowments that covered the cost of educating sixty poor children and orphans who made usse of the chapel itself for religious aspects of their attendance and had their school rooms and facilities at the back.
Meanwhile, at the Hackney Academy, the Rev. George Collison's main project, the training of ministers evolved as only part of the academy's function. It also raised funds to build dozens of new chapels, and worked closely with the non-denominational London Missionary Society
of which Collison was a Director, to promote missionary work. On his death in 1847 the presidency of Hackney Academy passed to the Rev. John Watson (1804-1859) of Union Chapel, Islington, who died when struck down by a vehicle on London Bridge.
After 1871 the academy formally used the name Hackney College
, and in 1887 as it had outgrown its Well Street premises in Hackney, it took on new premises at Finchley Road, Hampstead
where it was associetd with Peter Taylor Forsyth
. Besides the expanding space needed for education, by the end of the nineteenth century the college's trustees were able to report considerable success in their mission to build new chapels - listing over 50 chapels they had built wholly or partly. Moreover, the academy was able to contribute to the cost of the upkeep of a good number of these.
In 1900 it merged with New College London
and became part of the University of London, though the Hampstead building frequently retained use of the name 'Hackney College'. From 1924 onwards it was known as Hackney and New College.
One of the Rev. George Collison's other students, Isaac Phillips, was involved in a trial at The Old Bailey
. In 1822 he gave evidence against James Hamilton, a local painter and decorator who had returned to george Collisons house and college after carrying out refurbishments, to steal Isaac Phillips' purse containing fifty sovereigns. At that date such a considerable theft might have attracted a capital punishment, but the defendant appealed to the Rev. George Collison to save his life. He was found guilty of stealing and imprisoned for one year.
MR. ISAAC PHILLIPS . I am educating as a minister under the Reverend George Collison , who lives in Well-street, Hackney. About ten days before the robbery the prisoner had been painting; he was the only one employed - he finished the job on the 11th of December, last. On the 10th, while he was working there I was giving one of the students change for a sovereign; the student said what a number I had got there - I said there was 50 l. I do not know whether the prisoner heard it - the prisoner returned a little before one o'clock on the 12th, which was our dinner hour. I saw the gold in the bag in the drawer that morning, between nine and ten o'clock, and on returning from dinner to the study, I found it locked as I had left it - I unlocked it, and found the handle of a razor on the floor, my desk broken open, and the money gone - I did not see the prisoner again till the 10th of June, when Tufts brought him down to Hackney - I said I knew him, and asked if he did not know me; he said Yes; I said: "You know these studies," he said Yes - I said': "You are the person that painted them," he said Yes; I then got into a coach with him, and on our way from Hackney in the coach, I asked him how he came to commit the offence; he said he would not answer any question of that kind, but begged me to spare his life. The study is at the bottom of the garden; it is attached to the dwelling-house by two walls, and inclosed with the premises by a wall all round.
ROBERT TUFTS . I am a publican, and live in Upper East Smithfield. On the 12th of December, between five and six o'clock in the evening, the prisoner came to my house with two or three more, he called for a bottle of wine, took a bag out of his pocket, and gave me a sovereign; it was a small canvass bag with a red string - there was a great deal more money in it. I changed him two sovereigns out of it - I asked where he got the money; he said he had an uncle dead in the country, who had left him 50 l. He drank a 5 s. bowl of punch, and went away. I saw no more of him till the 10th of June. I saw him at my door - I asked him in; he had no shirt on, and appeared distressed. I went out to buy him a shirt and handkerchief - I told him there were hand-bills out against him for a robbery that he had done; he said he saw it pasted up in the Borough - I said he must go with me to the place, which he was willing to do; I said I did not know where the house was - he said I will shew you. We took a coach, and he said he hoped I would beg for his life, for it was the first crime that ever he did - he took me to Mr. Collison's; he ordered the coachman to pull up at the door. We saw Mr. Phillips, who said to him: "Do you know this place;" he said he did. He begged of him to save his life.
DAVID JONES . I am a painter, and live in Leonard-street, Finsbury. The prisoner was an out-door apprentice of mine - I sent him to Hackney to work at Mr. Collison's. He called at the shop on Monday morning, the 10th of December, and said he should finish that evening - I did not see him again till now. I had paid him no sovereigns. I knew of no uncle of his dying
THOMAS HARRISON . I am a headborough. On the night of the 12th of December, I was fetched and took the prisoner - he was brought to the watch-house, for having bad money. I found four sovereigns, a small bag, 2 l. 5 s. in silver, and some copper on him; I found they were all good, and asked him how he came by them; he said he had been doing a long job, and had left the money in his master's hands, and that he was going to have a spree with it. The bag was canvas, about six inches long and three wide.
Company when it was founded in the late 1830s; he is considered to be the cemetery's founder. It was his initial research, including a visit to Massachusetts to observe the New World's non-denominational approach to cemetery design at Mount Auburn, and a study of London burial statistics designed to show a sufficiency of income from burials to maintain Abney Park as a historic parkland, that enabled his project to succeed. His close links to wealthy City Congregationalists, and to Congregational
Ministers, also enabled him to form an unusually like-minded group of backers to launch and finance the venture.
All of the founders of the Abney Park Cemetery joint stock company were, like Collison, Congregationalists. The Congregationalists of London were already familiar with leading an avowedly non-denominational enterprise promoted largely by Congregationalists; their parallel in this regard being the London Missionary Society
. George Collison II acted on behalf of the Abney Park Cemetery
Joint Stock Company, to press home their 'New World' idea for a novel garden cemetery with a unique non-denominational design philosophy similar to the Congregationalists' approach to missionary work. George worked as the client representative to guide the company's architect William Hosking
and its botanist and nurseryman George Loddiges
, to bring about his desired effect.
Underpinning his philosophical and urban design
ideas, was George Collison's studies of the cemeteries of Europe and, more importantly of North America. His ideas were new to European cemetery design; influenced partly by Mount Auburn Cemetery
near Boston
in Massachusetts
which he visited in the 1830s. In the 1860s the cemetery's chaplain Thomas Barker was to write of the cemetery as 'sweet Abney' echoing the well-known poem 'Sweet Auburn' and adding that 'it is a spot of rare, if not unsurpassed lovliness; as a resting-place for the good it is indeed the most picturesque'. More directly, in 1840, George Collison himself wrote that: 'Mount Auburn, near Boston... may be considered a kind of prototype of the rest, is an object of transcendent interest to the traveller, and, is in a great degree similar to our own cemetery at Abney Park'. This remark about the weight Collison accorded to Mount Auburn Cemetery
, together with Collison's wider cemetery studies, were collated and published in his methodical review and reflection entitled:
This learned volume set out a meticulous listing of all the trees and shrubs commissioned for the Abney Park A to Z Arboretum, and for ornamental beds around the chapel, and for its rosarium
of over one thousand cultivars, varieties and species; together with a potential design for a monument to commemorate the life of Dr Isaac Watts
whose association with the Abney estate had been a principal motivation for Collison's commercial cemetery scheme, which appears to an extent to have become a vehicle to finance the preservation of, and public access to, the revered Abney Park.
George Collison II was a keen promoter of there being a commemorative statue to Isaac Watts
in London, and helped establish a committee to take the idea forwards. An early design was illustrated as the frontispiece to above book; and an eventual design by Edward Hodges Baily
was adopted in 1844/5 with the support of city and religious philanthropists, but by this date George Collison had left the cemetery company in which he had formerly been so closely involved; he disappears from the historical record and may have left England for America.
New College London
New College London was founded as a Congregationalist college in 1850.-Predecessor institutions:...
- itself part of the University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
.
Early life
Collison was born in BeverleyBeverley
Beverley is a market town, civil parish and the county town of the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, located between the River Hull and the Westwood. The town is noted for Beverley Minster and architecturally-significant religious buildings along New Walk and other areas, as well as the Beverley...
, Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
, on 6 January 1772, and became articled to a solicitor in Bridlington
Bridlington
Bridlington is a seaside resort, minor sea fishing port and civil parish on the Holderness Coast of the North Sea, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It has a static population of over 33,000, which rises considerably during the tourist season...
. Taking a keen interest in the local Independent Chapel, he became an early Sunday school teacher, and in 1792 decided to give up law and train full-time as a minister at Hoxton College near London. In 1797 he settled close to London in the village of Walthamstow
Walthamstow
Walthamstow is a district of northeast London, England, located in the London Borough of Waltham Forest. It is situated north-east of Charing Cross...
in Essex
Essex
Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
to carry out pastoral duties, becoming the minister of Marsh Street Independent (Congregational
Congregational church
Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing Congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs....
) chapel, in whose grounds he was eventually buried. He undertook this ministerial role whilst also tutoring at Hoxton - until ill health led him to give up the latter in 1801. Detached from Hoxton, he was sought after by other educationalists, and was attracted to an offer to become the founding President and first tutor of a new theological institution, the Hackney Academy. This was to be based on the non-denominational principles George Collison was already familiar with, in his early associations with the London Missionary Society
London Missionary Society
The London Missionary Society was a non-denominational missionary society formed in England in 1795 by evangelical Anglicans and Nonconformists, largely Congregationalist in outlook, with missions in the islands of the South Pacific and Africa...
.
Founding of the Hackney Academy (Hackney College)
The origin of the Hackney Academy began in 1802 as a philanthropic non-denominational venture promoted by the Anglican Rev. John Eyre of Homerton, Secretary of the London Missionary SocietyLondon Missionary Society
The London Missionary Society was a non-denominational missionary society formed in England in 1795 by evangelical Anglicans and Nonconformists, largely Congregationalist in outlook, with missions in the islands of the South Pacific and Africa...
and the Independent
Congregational church
Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing Congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs....
Rev. George Collison, with their associates, the Rev. Matthew Wilks of the Tabernacle, Moorfields
Whitefield's Tabernacle, Moorfields
Whitefield's Tabernacle, Moorfields is a church at the corner of Tabernacle Street and Leonard Street, London, England, originally a wooden building built by followers of George Whitefield in 1741, replaced by a brick building in 1753, and again rebuilt over a century later...
(a founder of the LMS), and the Rev. Rowland Hill
Rowland Hill
Rowland Hill may refer to:* Rowland Hill , English Member of Parliament for the City of London* Sir Rowland Hill, 1st Baronet Hill of Hawkstone , built Hawkstone Park follies...
of Surrey Chapel
Surrey Chapel
The Surrey Chapel was an independent Methodist and Congregational church established in Blackfriars Road, Southwark, London on 8 June 1783 by the Rev. Rowland Hill. His work was continued in 1833 by the Congregational pastor Rev. James Sherman, and in 1854 by Rev. Newman Hall. The chapel's design...
. They secured a bequest of £10,000 from wealthy Homerton resident, Charles Townsend, enabling the college to open, following some rebuilding works, in the former house of the Rev. John Eyre in Well Street, Hackney
Hackney (parish)
Hackney was a parish in the historic county of Middlesex. The parish church of St John-at-Hackney was built in 1789, replacing the nearby former 16th century parish church dedicated to St Augustine . The original tower of that church was retained to hold the bells until the new church could be...
village, in 1803. Its students lived here in premises converted from old stable buildings until the freehold was bought in 1843 and more extensive building work could be undertaken.
On taking up the Presidency of the Hackney Academy in 1803, George Collison continued some of his pastoral duties at Walthamstow, but was succeeded in similar work for a small congregation he had recently gathered in Hackney at the Well Street Chapel in Hackney. Here, his successor, the Rev. Mr Hughes, inherited a rapidly growing interest locally in Independent worship, and his congregation grew so rapidly that little time passed before a larger Independent chapel (Trinity Chapel) had to be built in nearby Devonshire Road. George Collison found a philanthropic use for his original chapel; it became the Well Street Chapel Free School, established in 1807 with generous endowments that covered the cost of educating sixty poor children and orphans who made usse of the chapel itself for religious aspects of their attendance and had their school rooms and facilities at the back.
Meanwhile, at the Hackney Academy, the Rev. George Collison's main project, the training of ministers evolved as only part of the academy's function. It also raised funds to build dozens of new chapels, and worked closely with the non-denominational London Missionary Society
London Missionary Society
The London Missionary Society was a non-denominational missionary society formed in England in 1795 by evangelical Anglicans and Nonconformists, largely Congregationalist in outlook, with missions in the islands of the South Pacific and Africa...
of which Collison was a Director, to promote missionary work. On his death in 1847 the presidency of Hackney Academy passed to the Rev. John Watson (1804-1859) of Union Chapel, Islington, who died when struck down by a vehicle on London Bridge.
After 1871 the academy formally used the name Hackney College
Hackney College
Hackney College is sometimes used to refer to Hackney Community College, a popular further education college in London Borough of Hackney...
, and in 1887 as it had outgrown its Well Street premises in Hackney, it took on new premises at Finchley Road, Hampstead
Hampstead
Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...
where it was associetd with Peter Taylor Forsyth
Peter Taylor Forsyth
Peter Taylor Forsyth, also known as P. T. Forsyth, was a Scottish theologian.The son of a postman, Forsyth studied at the University of Aberdeen and then in Göttingen...
. Besides the expanding space needed for education, by the end of the nineteenth century the college's trustees were able to report considerable success in their mission to build new chapels - listing over 50 chapels they had built wholly or partly. Moreover, the academy was able to contribute to the cost of the upkeep of a good number of these.
In 1900 it merged with New College London
New College London
New College London was founded as a Congregationalist college in 1850.-Predecessor institutions:...
and became part of the University of London, though the Hampstead building frequently retained use of the name 'Hackney College'. From 1924 onwards it was known as Hackney and New College.
Collison's Students
One of the Rev. George Collison's best known students was the philanthropist and founder of the London Orphan Asylum, the Rev. Dr Andrew Reed (1787-1862). Reed, who entered the college in 1807 and was ordained in 1811, became closely associated with Wycliffe Chapel in Shoreditch, where he remained pastor until November 27, 1861. A prominent missionary associated with China, Robert Morrison, was another of his successful students.One of the Rev. George Collison's other students, Isaac Phillips, was involved in a trial at The Old Bailey
Old Bailey
The Central Criminal Court in England and Wales, commonly known as the Old Bailey from the street in which it stands, is a court building in central London, one of a number of buildings housing the Crown Court...
. In 1822 he gave evidence against James Hamilton, a local painter and decorator who had returned to george Collisons house and college after carrying out refurbishments, to steal Isaac Phillips' purse containing fifty sovereigns. At that date such a considerable theft might have attracted a capital punishment, but the defendant appealed to the Rev. George Collison to save his life. He was found guilty of stealing and imprisoned for one year.
MR. ISAAC PHILLIPS . I am educating as a minister under the Reverend George Collison , who lives in Well-street, Hackney. About ten days before the robbery the prisoner had been painting; he was the only one employed - he finished the job on the 11th of December, last. On the 10th, while he was working there I was giving one of the students change for a sovereign; the student said what a number I had got there - I said there was 50 l. I do not know whether the prisoner heard it - the prisoner returned a little before one o'clock on the 12th, which was our dinner hour. I saw the gold in the bag in the drawer that morning, between nine and ten o'clock, and on returning from dinner to the study, I found it locked as I had left it - I unlocked it, and found the handle of a razor on the floor, my desk broken open, and the money gone - I did not see the prisoner again till the 10th of June, when Tufts brought him down to Hackney - I said I knew him, and asked if he did not know me; he said Yes; I said: "You know these studies," he said Yes - I said': "You are the person that painted them," he said Yes; I then got into a coach with him, and on our way from Hackney in the coach, I asked him how he came to commit the offence; he said he would not answer any question of that kind, but begged me to spare his life. The study is at the bottom of the garden; it is attached to the dwelling-house by two walls, and inclosed with the premises by a wall all round.
ROBERT TUFTS . I am a publican, and live in Upper East Smithfield. On the 12th of December, between five and six o'clock in the evening, the prisoner came to my house with two or three more, he called for a bottle of wine, took a bag out of his pocket, and gave me a sovereign; it was a small canvass bag with a red string - there was a great deal more money in it. I changed him two sovereigns out of it - I asked where he got the money; he said he had an uncle dead in the country, who had left him 50 l. He drank a 5 s. bowl of punch, and went away. I saw no more of him till the 10th of June. I saw him at my door - I asked him in; he had no shirt on, and appeared distressed. I went out to buy him a shirt and handkerchief - I told him there were hand-bills out against him for a robbery that he had done; he said he saw it pasted up in the Borough - I said he must go with me to the place, which he was willing to do; I said I did not know where the house was - he said I will shew you. We took a coach, and he said he hoped I would beg for his life, for it was the first crime that ever he did - he took me to Mr. Collison's; he ordered the coachman to pull up at the door. We saw Mr. Phillips, who said to him: "Do you know this place;" he said he did. He begged of him to save his life.
DAVID JONES . I am a painter, and live in Leonard-street, Finsbury. The prisoner was an out-door apprentice of mine - I sent him to Hackney to work at Mr. Collison's. He called at the shop on Monday morning, the 10th of December, and said he should finish that evening - I did not see him again till now. I had paid him no sovereigns. I knew of no uncle of his dying
THOMAS HARRISON . I am a headborough. On the night of the 12th of December, I was fetched and took the prisoner - he was brought to the watch-house, for having bad money. I found four sovereigns, a small bag, 2 l. 5 s. in silver, and some copper on him; I found they were all good, and asked him how he came by them; he said he had been doing a long job, and had left the money in his master's hands, and that he was going to have a spree with it. The bag was canvas, about six inches long and three wide.
George Collison II
The Rev. George Collison had one daughter, Hannah; and a son, George Collison II. George II took up his father's previous occupation - law - and became Secretary and Registrar of the Abney Park CemeteryAbney Park Cemetery
Abney Park in Stoke Newington, in the London Borough of Hackney, is a historic parkland originally laid out in the early 18th century by Lady Mary Abney and Dr. Isaac Watts, and the neighbouring Hartopp family. In 1840 it became a non-denominational garden cemetery, semi-public park arboretum, and...
Company when it was founded in the late 1830s; he is considered to be the cemetery's founder. It was his initial research, including a visit to Massachusetts to observe the New World's non-denominational approach to cemetery design at Mount Auburn, and a study of London burial statistics designed to show a sufficiency of income from burials to maintain Abney Park as a historic parkland, that enabled his project to succeed. His close links to wealthy City Congregationalists, and to Congregational
Congregational church
Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing Congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs....
Ministers, also enabled him to form an unusually like-minded group of backers to launch and finance the venture.
All of the founders of the Abney Park Cemetery joint stock company were, like Collison, Congregationalists. The Congregationalists of London were already familiar with leading an avowedly non-denominational enterprise promoted largely by Congregationalists; their parallel in this regard being the London Missionary Society
London Missionary Society
The London Missionary Society was a non-denominational missionary society formed in England in 1795 by evangelical Anglicans and Nonconformists, largely Congregationalist in outlook, with missions in the islands of the South Pacific and Africa...
. George Collison II acted on behalf of the Abney Park Cemetery
Abney Park Cemetery
Abney Park in Stoke Newington, in the London Borough of Hackney, is a historic parkland originally laid out in the early 18th century by Lady Mary Abney and Dr. Isaac Watts, and the neighbouring Hartopp family. In 1840 it became a non-denominational garden cemetery, semi-public park arboretum, and...
Joint Stock Company, to press home their 'New World' idea for a novel garden cemetery with a unique non-denominational design philosophy similar to the Congregationalists' approach to missionary work. George worked as the client representative to guide the company's architect William Hosking
William Hosking
William Hosking FSA was a writer, lecturer, and architect who had an important influence on the growth and development of London in Victorian times...
and its botanist and nurseryman George Loddiges
Loddiges
The Loddiges family managed one of the most notable of the eighteenth and nineteenth century plant nurseries that traded in and introduced exotic plants, trees, shrubs, ferns, palms and orchids into European gardens....
, to bring about his desired effect.
Underpinning his philosophical and urban design
Urban design
Urban design concerns the arrangement, appearance and functionality of towns and cities, and in particular the shaping and uses of urban public space. It has traditionally been regarded as a disciplinary subset of urban planning, landscape architecture, or architecture and in more recent times has...
ideas, was George Collison's studies of the cemeteries of Europe and, more importantly of North America. His ideas were new to European cemetery design; influenced partly by Mount Auburn Cemetery
Mount Auburn Cemetery
Mount Auburn Cemetery was founded in 1831 as "America's first garden cemetery", or the first "rural cemetery", with classical monuments set in a rolling landscaped terrain...
near Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
in Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
which he visited in the 1830s. In the 1860s the cemetery's chaplain Thomas Barker was to write of the cemetery as 'sweet Abney' echoing the well-known poem 'Sweet Auburn' and adding that 'it is a spot of rare, if not unsurpassed lovliness; as a resting-place for the good it is indeed the most picturesque'. More directly, in 1840, George Collison himself wrote that: 'Mount Auburn, near Boston... may be considered a kind of prototype of the rest, is an object of transcendent interest to the traveller, and, is in a great degree similar to our own cemetery at Abney Park'. This remark about the weight Collison accorded to Mount Auburn Cemetery
Mount Auburn Cemetery
Mount Auburn Cemetery was founded in 1831 as "America's first garden cemetery", or the first "rural cemetery", with classical monuments set in a rolling landscaped terrain...
, together with Collison's wider cemetery studies, were collated and published in his methodical review and reflection entitled:
- Cemetery Interment...Descriptions of Pere la Chaise, the Eastern Cemeteries, And those of America.. and more particularly of the Abney Park Cemetery Company 1840.
This learned volume set out a meticulous listing of all the trees and shrubs commissioned for the Abney Park A to Z Arboretum, and for ornamental beds around the chapel, and for its rosarium
Rose
A rose is a woody perennial of the genus Rosa, within the family Rosaceae. There are over 100 species. They form a group of erect shrubs, and climbing or trailing plants, with stems that are often armed with sharp prickles. Flowers are large and showy, in colours ranging from white through yellows...
of over one thousand cultivars, varieties and species; together with a potential design for a monument to commemorate the life of Dr Isaac Watts
Isaac Watts
Isaac Watts was an English hymnwriter, theologian and logician. A prolific and popular hymnwriter, he was recognised as the "Father of English Hymnody", credited with some 750 hymns...
whose association with the Abney estate had been a principal motivation for Collison's commercial cemetery scheme, which appears to an extent to have become a vehicle to finance the preservation of, and public access to, the revered Abney Park.
George Collison II was a keen promoter of there being a commemorative statue to Isaac Watts
Isaac Watts
Isaac Watts was an English hymnwriter, theologian and logician. A prolific and popular hymnwriter, he was recognised as the "Father of English Hymnody", credited with some 750 hymns...
in London, and helped establish a committee to take the idea forwards. An early design was illustrated as the frontispiece to above book; and an eventual design by Edward Hodges Baily
Edward Hodges Baily
Edward Hodges Baily RA FRS - was an English sculptor who was born in Downend in Bristol.-Life:...
was adopted in 1844/5 with the support of city and religious philanthropists, but by this date George Collison had left the cemetery company in which he had formerly been so closely involved; he disappears from the historical record and may have left England for America.