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IN MEMORIAM 
 
 ROBERT COLLYER 
 
 FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE 
 CHICAGO LITERARY CLUB 
 
 BORN DECEMBER 8, 1823 
 DIED DECEMBER 1, 1912 
 
 CHICAGO LITERARY CLUB 
 1913 
 
DEACCESSIONED BY 
 
 CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY 
 
 PRI^tp, "COLLECTIONS 
 
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 7 
 
 
THIS memorial was prepared by a 
 committee composed of Samuel S. 
 Greeley, William Eliot Furness, Edward 
 O. Brown, and Charles Edward Cheney, 
 and was read at the meeting of the Club held 
 on Monday evening, January 27, 1913. 
 
Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive 
 
 in 2010 witii funding from 
 
 CARLI: Consortium of Academic and Researcii Libraries in Illinois 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/inmemoriamrobertOOchic 
 
IN MEMORIAM 
 
 ROBERT COLLYER 
 
 ROBERT CpLLYER, first president 
 . of the Chicago Literary Club, was 
 born in the Httle village of Keighley 
 in the West Riding of Yorkshire, Eng- 
 land, on December eighth, 1823; he died 
 in New York on December first, 1912. 
 Mr. Collyer^s parents were working 
 people of a type superior in intelligence 
 and character. Both of them worked in 
 the linen mills from childhood to 
 marriage. The mother tended a loom; 
 the father was the blacksmith. It was 
 the dawn of the new industrial day. 
 New inventions and new processes of 
 manufacture increased the output, and 
 stimulated the demand for labor. The 
 Napoleonic wars of twenty years before 
 had drained away the young manhood 
 of Europe, causing a scarcity of hands. 
 Every idle hand was needed, and the 
 burden fell heavily upon childhood. 
 
Little Robert, eight years old, was placed 
 with many others as young, in the mill 
 to tend a loom thirteen hours a day for 
 six days per week, with two hours off on 
 Saturday. At fourteen, deciding to 
 follow the trade of his father, he was 
 apprenticed to a blacksmith in a neigh- 
 boring town. 
 
 The family had their birthright in 
 the old parish church, where the parents 
 were married, and where the children 
 were baptized, but they usually attended 
 the Methodist chapel on the hill. 
 Neither the father or the mother made 
 profession of religion. 
 
 Robert's official education was main- 
 ly limited to attendance at night school 
 for several winters during the early part 
 of his apprenticeship. His real mental 
 and moral training was got in the whole- 
 some atmosphere of the Yorkshire 
 cottage, in the stern discipline of factory 
 and forge, and in the few books which 
 his slender means allowed him to buy 
 and such as he was able to borrow. 
 
 There was a small store of books in 
 the house; among them were Bunyan's 
 
Pilgrim, Robinson Crusoe, and Gold- 
 smith's Histories of Greece and Rome: 
 These he almost got by heart. The rest 
 were religious books; ^'they did not suit 
 me,*' he writes, ^'so I let them hang on 
 the shelf." From these books and others 
 loaned or given by friends, he drew his 
 life-long love for simple Saxon words 
 and phrases. 
 
 While still working at the forge he was 
 licensed as a Methodist local preacher, 
 and preached, sometimes in chapels, 
 sometimes in kitchens, in that region. 
 
 In April, 1850, he married and sailed 
 with his wife for the United States, 
 where he continued to preach to Meth- 
 odist congregations, supporting his 
 family by working at the forge, and at 
 such other jobs as offered. The new land 
 offered a wider outlook, and furnished 
 new friends who were not bound by the 
 creeds and conventions of the churches 
 he had known in the homeland. Asso- 
 ciation with these, a wider range of 
 reading, and some specially lurid ser- 
 mons which he then heard from a 
 Methodist preacher brought about a 
 
change in his views, and he formally 
 withdrew from the Methodist connec- 
 tion and affiliated with the Unitarian 
 church in Chicago, to become its ''min- 
 ister at large," to oversee its work for 
 social betterment. 
 
 In May, 1859, he became pastor of 
 Unity Church in Chicago, but he was 
 far more than that. He was a recognized 
 force in the civic life of his adopted 
 city and country. When the civil war 
 broke out he went as a volunteer nurse 
 to care for the sick and wounded soldiers 
 at Fort Donelson and on the Potomac, 
 and he did efficient service for the gov- 
 ernment and the United States Sanitary 
 Commission. After the great Chicago 
 fire of 1871, Mr. Collyer worked actively 
 with the Relief and Aid Society in re- 
 lieving distress and distributing the vast 
 aid fund given by the world's charity in 
 of the stricken city. 
 
 As might be expected from his early 
 training in home and shop, his theory 
 of life was thoroughly democratic. He 
 loved common things and the plain 
 people: he found "sermons in stones, 
 
 10 
 
books in the running brooks, and good 
 in every thing." He had the rare power 
 of visuaHzing persons and things, and 
 making his audience see them as he 
 saw them. 
 
 His genial, helpful, cosmopolitan 
 spirit was felt by all with whom he came 
 in contact. A member of the committee 
 writes thus: "The impression which 
 Mr. Collyer left upon my memory was 
 that of an unusual largeness of heart, 
 tender sympathy with suffering, an es- 
 pecial interest in young people, and a 
 geniality which drew to him with mag- 
 netic attraction the rich and the poor 
 alike. His mind was singularly poetic 
 in its cast. A certain poetic interpre- 
 tation of everything in nature, in history 
 and in current events, was the domina- 
 ting feature of the addresses v/hich I had 
 the pleasure and privilege of hearing. 
 Every citizen of Chicago — no matter 
 what his religious, political or social 
 predilections — who came into touch 
 with Mr. Collyer, even in the most cas- 
 ual way, could not help feeling for him 
 that confidence and affection which a 
 
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big, generous and loyal nature never 
 fails to inspire.'' 
 
 A note from another testifies to Mr. 
 Collyer's interest in young men. He 
 writes: ''My college classmate and I 
 came to Chicago, in 1872, bearing letters 
 to Mr. Collyer from friends in New 
 England. When we went to his house 
 to present our letters he happened to be 
 out. We thought our letters might draw 
 from him a note expressing his interest 
 and asking us to call. What was our 
 surprise when on one of the hottest 
 summer days a week later Mr. Collyer 
 came toiling up to our room on an upper 
 floor to return our call. From that time 
 till he left Chicago, we were both on 
 terms of close acquaintance with him, 
 and he was most helpful in suggestions 
 morally, intellectually and materially. 
 Thereafter I was a frequent visitor at his 
 house, where I met the most interesting 
 people I have known. My visits being 
 generally on Sunday, I often met Euro- 
 peans and Orientals, who came to visit 
 one already known to them by his 
 writings. A noted guest was Mrs. 
 
 12 
 
Leonowens, sometime English govern- 
 ess at the court of Siam. There were 
 actors, clergymen, authors and statesmen- 
 groups such as now might hardly be 
 found assembled except at Hull House/' 
 
 During a pastorate of twenty years, 
 Mr. Collyer served his church and his 
 city loyally and diligently; then, feeling 
 that a change was necessary for himself, 
 and perhaps desirable for the church, he 
 resigned his charge and accepted a call 
 to the Church of the Messiah in New 
 York, a charge which ended only with 
 his life. 
 
 Mr. Collyer was one of a small group 
 of men called in council by the original 
 proponents of this club, to assist in its 
 organization: he was elected its first 
 president and remained its fast friend 
 and supporter to the end. 
 
 After his removal from Chicago he 
 visited the club twice or thrice — the 
 last time on the special invitation of the 
 club. On these occasions he addressed 
 us with all his old time pathos and fervor, 
 making us feel that we were still the 
 comrades and friends of bygone days. 
 
 13 
 
THE PUBLISHERS' PRESS, CHICAGO