Instead, he strongly commits himself to following reason, wherever it leads.
Collins was born in Isleworth, a village near London, on 21 June 1676, the eldest child of Henry and Martha Collins. His father was a lawyer, who added to the substantial property near London and in rural Essex that Collins's grandfather (also a lawyer) had accumulated. He was educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, where he was admitted in 1693, but without any intention of taking a degree. Following family tradition, he was admitted to the Middle Temple in 1694, but a legal career did not interest him, and he spent most of his time through 1696 at Cambridge.
In 1697 Collins married Martha Child, daughter of an influential banker, Sir Francis Child, who was lord mayor of London and a member of Parliament. The marriage agreement stipulated that the Collins family properties were to be held in a trust by Anthony and Martha Collins and their descendants. The couple had four children (Henry, Elizabeth, Anthony, and Martha), the first dying in infancy while the last occasioned her mother's death in childbirth in April 1703.
Collins spent part of each year in Essex looking after the family properties and permanently moved there around 1715, participating actively in county government.
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