Researching Peter Collett

Peter Collett was born at Modum in Buskerud, Norway. He was the eldest son of landowner Peter Collett (1740–1786) and his first wife Kirstine Holmboe (1745–1768). He was a brother of Christian Ancher Collett and Anne Cathrine Collett. He grew up on his father's estate at Buskerud Manor (Buskerud Hovedgård). From 1784 to 1785, Collett attended the Christiania Cathedral School. During 1788, he studied law at the University of Copenhagen.

In August 1794 he married vicar's daughter Eilertine Severine Bendeke (1777–1857). They were the parents of eleven childrenm including Bernt Anker Collet. He was the grandfather of Albert Collett and great-grandfather of Emil Collett.

Peter Collett was an assessor in the diocesan court of Akershus from 1802 to 1814. He served as a judge on the bench of the Supreme Court of Norway from 1814 to 1830. In 1818, Collett was the delegate from Buskerud at the coronation of King Charles XIV John of Sweden. In 1800, he took over Buskerud Manor from his stepmother, Johanne Henrikke Ancher (1750-1818). In 1809, he bought Hassel Iron Works (Hassel Jernværk) at Skotselv in Øvre Eiker. Collett stopped iron production in 1835.

He was born in Zealand as a brother of Johan and Jonas Collett. He was a rationalist and radical, and he published a long and favorable review of Michael Gottlieb Birckners 1797 book On the Freedom of the Press and its Law, where amongst other things he defended the freedom to call for sedition as well as the right for government officials to profess atheism. The same year he was fired from his position as an assessor in Copenhagen for this.

The editor of Lærde Efterretninger Rasmus Nyerup offered him his position as editor of this magazine, and later he accepted the position as co-editor of the popular journal Minerva. He wrote numerous articles for these journals, many of them overtly critical of the government, as well as translations of texts by the English philosopher Francis Bacon. In 1800 he emigrated to the Danish West Indies.