Editing William Frederick Collings (section)

== Family life ==

Collings was devoted to his wife Sophie (née Moffatt),<ref name="Marr"/> with whom he had two daughters, [[Sibyl Hathaway|Sibyl]] and Doris. As he had no sons, his elder daughter Sibyl was his [[heiress presumptive]]. He raised her as a boy and, despite her lameness caused by [[unequal leg length]], taught her to shoot, sail, and climb cliffs. Nevertheless, whenever they came into conflict, he called her a "damned [[virago]]". He never allowed either Doris or the physically disabled Sibyl to complain of pain or sadness, explaining that "they would be a lot worse off" when they grew old; Sibyl later expressed gratitude to her father for "being able to live a life free of the inconvenience of self-pity".<ref name="Smithsonian"/>

The seigneur strongly disapproved of his heiress presumptive's relationship with the painter [[Dudley Beaumont]], considering him a "weakling" because he did not shoot or climb cliffs. When he learned that she had continued seeing him, he threw her out from [[La Seigneurie]] in a nightdress. Despite his attempts to find her the next morning, she went to London and married Beaumont. For the first time since her marriage, Collings contacted her when she had her first child, a daughter named Bridget. Wishing to send a conciliatory telegram, he consoled her for giving birth to a daughter by writing: "Sorry it was a [[fox#Etymology|vixen]]."<ref name="Smithsonian"/> In April 1906, the seigneur and his wife survived a shipwreck, but it worsened her existing illness, leading to her death a few months later.<ref name="Marr"/>