Born on July 16th, 1785, the son of William Collier and Elizabeth his wife. He lost his father in early youth and was started in life by his elder brother. He entered on his career on September 25th, 1805, as a Medical Cadet and Surgeon's Mate on the Hospital Staff, not attached to a regiment, and was gazetted Assistant Surgeon to the 13th Foot on October 2nd, 1806, serving in Bermuda. He was present at the capture of Martinique in 1809, and on August 10th in that year was appointed Surgeon to the 60th Foot, from which regiment he exchanged to the 70th Foot on February 1st, 1810. He became a Staff Surgeon on June 4th, 1812, and from the latter part of 1812 to the Peace in 1814 he was with the army during the campaigns in the Peninsula and the South of France, being present at the Battles of Vittoria, Orthez, and Toulouse. In the next year he served in Belgium and Hanover. In November, 1817, having exchanged to another regiment in October, he was ordered to Ceylon, where for some years he had medical charge of the troops at Trincomalee. Here, says his daughter, Mrs M A E Lyon, in a short and charming biography, published in 1870: "In the leisure afforded by his more immediate duties he gave his particular attention to conchology and made a complete collection of the shells, many of which were rare, inhabiting that part of the Indian Ocean. Not satisfied with outward forms, by diligent and minute dissection he displayed the anatomy or functional organs of the living molluscs, and in the course of his studies was enabled to discover certain facts connected with their structure. Mr Collier had these dissections most artistically drawn in water-colours by an intelligent Staff Assistant Surgeon." They were sent to the Royal Society through the Secretary, Dr Roget Collier also formed a Museum for the Natural History of Ceylon, and in 1830 he was elected FRS. He was removed from Trincomalee to Colombo to take the direction of hospitals, both military and civil. In the Dutch town outside the Fort, besides a general hospital for the civil population, there are in the suburbs asylums for incurable lepers and for the insane. These useful and humane institutions were founded by the Dutch Government, and their medical wants were administered by native practitioners of the burgher class. Collier, by his able management and personal inspection, materially improved the interior economy of these valuable establishments and was instrumental in procuring for their medical attendants some increase to their previous miserable pay. Staff-Surgeon Collier, by appointing Army Medical Officers at the principal stations to assist and direct the labours of the native vaccinators, greatly extended the practice of vaccination throughout the island. Collier left Colombo for the Mauritius in December, 1828, and was given brevet rank as Deputy Inspector of Hospitals on Oct 1st, 1829. He was appointed Principal Medical Officer of the Island, where he remained upwards of four years. He was promoted to the rank of Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals on July 22nd, 1830, and retired on half pay on June 9th, 1838, his last station having been Bombay. After his return to England Collier proceeded to take several medical and surgical degrees. He was appointed Consulting Physician to the St Pancras Royal General Dispensary in 1845. He was for many years an assiduous attendant at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, of which, as well as of the Geological Society, he was a member. Up to an advanced age Collier devoted himself to scientific and literary pursuits. He was a philologist and an excellent Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, and German scholar. He died at his residence, 20 Fitzroy Square, W, on May 6th, 1870. He had married in February, 1822, Miss Christina Johnstone, second daughter of the Rev John Johnstone, Minister of Crossmichael, Kirkcudbright, and had by her several children, of whom only one, Mrs Lyon, the youngest, survived at the time of his death. A small photograph portrait of Collier accompanies this lady's biography of her father. Publications: "General Observations on Univalves." - *Edin. New Phil. Jour.*, 1829. "On the Tripang, or Sea Slug of India." - *Ibid.*, 1830. *Aristotle on the Vital Principle, translated from the original text, with Notes*, 1855. The notes occupy nearly half the volume. *An Essay on the Principles of Education, physiologically considered*, 12mo, London, 1856. *The History of the Plague of Athens, translated from Thucydides ; with Remarks explanatory of its Pathology*, 12mo, London, 1857.