Marie Collings (née Allaire; 1791–1853), sometimes referred to as Mary Collings, was a wealthy

Guernsey Guernsey ( ; Guernésiais: ''Guernési''; ) is the second-largest island in the Channel Islands, located west of the Cotentin Peninsula, Normandy. It is the largest island in the Bailiwick of Guernsey, which includes five other inhabited isl ...

heiress who ruled as

Dame ''Dame'' is a traditionally British honorific title given to women who have been admitted to certain orders of chivalry. It is the female equivalent of ''Sir'', the title used by knights. Baronet, Baronetesses Suo jure, in their own right also u ...

Sark Sark (Sercquiais: or , ) is an island in the southwestern English Channel, off the coast of Normandy, and part of the archipelago of the Channel Islands. It is a self-governing British Crown Dependencies, Crown Dependency, with its own set o ...

(island) from 1852 to 1853, being the island's second female ruler and the first holder of the fief from the presently ruling seigneurial family. She inherited the fortune of her father, the

privateer A privateer is a private person or vessel which engages in commerce raiding under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign o ...

John Allaire, who had obtained the mortgage on the

fief A fief (; ) was a central element in medieval contracts based on feudal law. It consisted of a form of property holding or other rights granted by an overlord to a vassal, who held it in fealty or "in fee" in return for a form of feudal alle ...

shortly before his death. The island's then-ruling seigneur, Pierre Carey le Pelley, soon had no option but to sell the fief to Collings, but she never actively governed it.

Background

Collings was born into a wealthy family from

, one of the

Channel Islands The Channel Islands are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They are divided into two Crown Dependencies: the Jersey, Bailiwick of Jersey, which is the largest of the islands; and the Bailiwick of Guernsey, ...

. She was one of the two daughters of the

John Allaire (1762–1846), the other one being Catherine Allaire. Her father was reputedly the most affluent man in Guernsey, whose fortune appears to have stemmed not only from privateering during the

Napoleonic Wars {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Napoleonic Wars , partof = the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars , image = Napoleonic Wars (revision).jpg , caption = Left to right, top to bottom:Battl ...

, but also from outright

piracy Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and valuable goods, or taking hostages. Those who conduct acts of piracy are call ...

. She was married to Thomas Guérin Collings,

Constable A constable is a person holding a particular office, most commonly in law enforcement. The office of constable can vary significantly in different jurisdictions. ''Constable'' is commonly the rank of an officer within a police service. Other peo ...

of the Town and Parish of

Saint Peter Port St. Peter Port () is a town and one of the ten parishes on the island of Guernsey in the Channel Islands. It is the capital of the Bailiwick of Guernsey as well as the main port. The population in 2019 was 18,958. St. Peter Port is a small tow ...

. The couple had a son, William Thomas Collings (1823–1882), and several daughters. Collings' husband died in 1832.

Mortgage

On 24 February 1844, desperate for funds to continue the operation of the

silver mine Silver mining is the extraction of silver by mining. Silver is a precious metal and holds high economic value. Because silver is often found in intimate combination with other metals, its extraction requires the use of complex technologies. In ...

on the island, the then-

Seigneur of Sark The Seigneur of Sark is the lord of the manor of Sark in the Channel Islands. A female seigneur of Sark is called Dame of Sark, of which there have been three. The husband of a female ruler of Sark is not a Prince consort, consort but is ''jure ...

Ernest le Pelley obtained crown permission to mortgage the

of Sark for £4,000 to Collings' father. The latter died within two years, leaving his wealth to his daughters. The mortgage and the

tenement A tenement is a type of building shared by multiple dwellings, typically with flats or apartments on each floor and with shared entrance stairway access. They are common on the British Isles, particularly in Scotland. In the medieval Old Town, E ...

of the island of Jethou passed to Collings. The mine closed in 1847, two years after the uninsured collapse of its deepest gallery, and when Ernest le Pelley died in 1849 his successor, Pierre Carey le Pelley, was unable to keep up his mortgage payments to Collings. She then decided to foreclose the mortgage, forcing him to seek

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in January 1901. Her reign of 63 year ...

's permission to sell the seigneurie of Sark on 10 November 1852. The widowed Marie Collings bought it on 4 December for £6,000 less the sum borrowed and an accumulated interest of £616.13s, for a total of £1,383.

Seigneurship

By the time she became Dame of Sark, she was already too old to actively participate in the government of the island. She never visited it during her tenure, "to the regret of the Sark people". La Seigneurie, official residence of the ruler of Sark, was modernised and extended during Collings' brief rule, just like it was in the 1730s, when another widow, Susanne le Pelley, bought the fief. Collings meanwhile resided in Guernsey, and was represented in Sark by her only son and

heir apparent An heir apparent is a person who is first in the order of succession and cannot be displaced from inheriting by the birth of another person. A person who is first in the current order of succession but could be displaced by the birth of a more e ...

, the Anglican priest William Thomas Collings. He succeeded her as seigneur of Sark upon her death in 1853, less than a year after the purchase. She was also survived by a daughter, Catherine Ann Allaire Ozanne (1826–1879). The island remains in Collings' family through the children of William Thomas and Louisa Collings. Her descendant Christopher Beaumont is the current seigneur.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Collings, Marie 1791 births 1853 deaths Seigneurs of Sark People from the Bailiwick of Guernsey 19th-century women monarchs