Son of a black­smith and mill work­er, Coll­yer be­gan work­ing in the lo­cal lin­en mill at age se­ven, but short­ly af­ter was ap­prent­iced to a black­smith in Ilk­ley. Around age 21, he be­gan at­tend­ing the Wes­ley­an church in Skip­ton Road. He mar­ried Har­ri­et Wat­son in 1847, but she died giv­ing birth to their se­cond child two years lat­er. In 1850, Coll­yer re-mar­ried, to Ann Long­bot­tom, and em­i­grat­ed to Amer­i­ca. He first set­tled in Phil­a­del­phia, Penn­syl­van­ia, where Ro­bert worked as a smithy. In 1859, he moved from the Meth­od­ist church to the Un­i­tar­i­ans. The fam­i­ly moved to Chi­ca­go, Il­li­nois, where he was ap­point­ed Min­is­ter at Large for the First Un­i­tar­i­an Church. Dur­ing the Amer­i­can Civil War, Coll­yer served with the San­i­tary Com­mis­sion, an or­gan­iz­a­tion sim­i­lar to the Red Cross.

In 1862, Collyer be­came Min­is­ter in Charge at the North Side Un­i­tar­i­an Church in Chi­ca­go. How­ever, both the church and his home burned in the Great Chi­ca­go Fire of 1871. In 1879, Coll­yer moved to New York Ci­ty to be­come pas­tor of the Un­i­tar­i­an Church of the Mes­si­ah. He re­tired in 1896, and Leeds Un­i­ver­si­ty award­ed him an hon­o­rary Litt.D de­gree in 1907.

Sources

Hymns

1. Unto Thy Temple, Lord, We Come