On 20 December 1825 Edward greeted the birth at his home at Higher Mere Park Farm of yet another son, but Philip had to wait until 12 February 1829 for his christening which was at Mere church where Edward had been a churchwarden. The register records that he was four years old; another baptism delayed until after Edward's death. It can be imagined that the priest was able to influence Sarah as she struggled to pick up the pieces of her life and run the farm during the last few months of her tenancy. We have no idea where Philip got to over the next 12 years but like his two brothers, he qualified as a MRCS at University College Hospital, London. There is confusion over some of the information gleaned about him but he is first noticed in the Sydney Morning Herald of the 14 December 1854:

Arrival December 13 Waterloo ship 900 tons Capt. Green from Plymouth 1 September. Passengers ... Miss Turnbull, Miss H Turnbull, Messrs. Merryweather, Spence.

Perhaps he had taken Sarah Corbett Turnbull to Australia or met her on the voyage. They are next found at St. Philip's, Sydney where they married by licence on St. Valentine's day 1855. The witnesses were C H W Harris and L Stanley. By happy chance, the identity of the other Miss Turnbull was discovered and it was found that Philip not only gained a wife that day, but a sister-in-law and brother-in-law as well:

Philip Edward Collins third son of the late Edward Merewether Esq. of Mere Park, Wilts to Sarah Corbett, third daughter, and Francis, youngest son of the late John Spence Esq., of Sunderland, to Hannah fifth daughter of Rev. Dr. Turnbull, Ph. Dr. of London.²

The surprising thing about the double wedding was that the Spences had as witnesses, Philip's brother John and his wife Mary Ann. The Sydney Morning Herald in recording these events noted that it was the Rev. Archdeacon Cowper who performed the ceremony.

Sarah was born at Hitchin, Hertfordshire ca.1823 and baptised at the Broad Street Meeting, Independent Chapel, Reading, Berkshire. She was probably a sister to Rev. Joseph Corbett Turnbull born ca.1814 at Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire who became the senior mathematics master at Cheltenham College between 1841 and 1872, where he died 28 February 1879.

There can be no doubt that the newly-weds returned to England in 1855 as Philip was apprenticed for five years to William P Jones an apothecary of Surbiton, Surrey and in the year following he was recorded in the Candidates Registration Book of the Society of Apothecaries, which shows his address as Euston Square, London. He was also pursuing medical and surgical studies as Churchill's 1856 Directory shows him as a Surgeon of 182 Euston Rd. He finally gained his MRCS on the 1 January 1859, Churchill's showing him at a fashionable address in London, 14 Colville Road, Bayswater, and also of Corma [sic], New South Wales, but in 1860, Churchill's confusingly shows his address as Sydney, NSW.

Many surgeons obtained extra qualifications to survive in the overcrowded medical world and this may be why Philip appeared at 5pm on the 5 April 1860 to be examined in company with 22 other gentlemen at the Apothecaries Hall in London where they were admitted by Mr Dickson who was in the chair presiding over the whole court of examiners. He successfully sat the written work and was interrogated by Mr. Peregrine, resulting in the granting of a Certificate of Qualification to practise as an Apothecary.³
According to Churchill's Directories for 1863-65, he had moved to 10 Brunswick Terrace, Westbourne Grove, London and from 1866 to 1875 was back again at 14 Colville Road. The 1871 census entry for this address shows the family including five children, all born in England, but nothing otherwise notable apart from a boarder, Gisbourne Babington aged 59, born at Cossington in Leicestershire, whose occupation was shown as 'Income from dividends'.⁴ It does not seem that there was any family connection, simply a need perhaps, to take in a lodger. Both Philip's and Sarah's ages are wrongly stated in this census. It is difficult to reconcile any of this information with a second Australian visit.

Philip does not seem to have been nearly so successful a surgeon as his elder brother John, and he died at Colville Road on the 11 February 1875, just short of his 20th wedding anniversary from a spasm of the heart. His Will, proved at London on the 16 March, bequeathed everything to 'my dear wife Sarah Corbett Merryweather', the estate being but £200. We know nothing else about him save that he was a member of the Harveian Society.⁵

Sarah lived for nearly 20 years, dying 10 November 1894 aged 72 at 17 Craven Park Road, Harlesden, London NW10, with daughter Mary Constance by her side. Her Will made out on the day of her death left everything to this spinster daughter, but was for only £105.

John Edward Corbett Merryweather was the first child, born 15 November 1856 at 2 Euston Square but he was not baptised at St. Pancras Old Church until 26 August 1857. At the time of the 1881 census he was a clerk in a sugar warehouse living at Croome House, St. Charles Place. Kensington with his widowed mother and sister Mary.⁶ He became a commercial clerk and was married late in life on 14 May 1905 at St. Paul's, Haggerston, Shoreditch, London, to a spinster, Frances Tutty, born in Kensington 23 December 1860. Frances was the daughter of a deceased railway superintendent (formerly engine driver), Philip Tutty and Frances née Shrimpton. The witnesses were George Gordon Burt, Mary Constance Chardainne and possibly Alfred Chas. Compton. No children have been found. John died from double pneumonia at the same address given on the marriage certificate, 11 Marlborough Road, Shoreditch, on the 22 August 1914, his married sister Amy Collins Linden, whose address was given as Leyspring, 10 Mornington Rd., Leytonstone, London, with him when he died. What happened to his widow has not yet been fully researched.

Mary Constance Merryweather was the first daughter born at 182 Euston Road on the 4 July 1858 and baptised at St. Pancras on the following 8 June. She was still unmarried in 1894 when she was in attendance at her mother's death. However she did make a late marriage to Frederic Chardainne, born 27 December 1856 at Laigle, Normandy, son of Jean Baptiste Chardainne and Félicité Eléonore Léontine Lanoe. This took place at Levallois-Perret, Paris on 19 September 1903 and she signed as a witness to her brother Edward's marriage in May 1905. After many years of fruitless searching her death was found to have been on 6 January 1951, the 'widow of Frederic Chardainne occupation not known'. This 92 year old lady died at 10 Bromley Road, Lewisham, South London of cardiac failure, advanced senility and aorteric sclerosis.
No information about Frederic has yet been found but it is most unlikely that there would have been any children.

Augusta Corbett Merryweather was the next child, born 25 July 1860 at 4 Euston Grove, Euston Square, the baptism being at St Peter’s Bayswater on the 31 August following. Apart from the 1881 census⁶ showing her living at Chalfont St. Peter as a companion to Miss Lucy Dixon. Nothing more is known about unmarried Augusta who died of cardiac failure, on 4 January 1939 at 71 Malmesbury Road, Woodford, Essex, sister Amy Linden with her as she passed away.

Amy Collins Merryweather seems to have had a much more fulfilling life. She was born at Brunswick Terrace, Kensington on the 13 April 1862 and baptised the following 11 June at St. Peter’s Bayswater. Her marriage by Licence aged 21 on the 5 September 1883 at St. George's, Tufnell Park, Islington, London was to Henry Cooke Linden, born ca.1856, a son of William Linden, Gentleman. Henry was surely introduced into the family because he was a physician and surgeon. Her address at the time of marriage was given as Halliford House, Sunbury, Middlesex and that of her husband as Martello House, Dalmeny Road, North London. Witnesses at the wedding were James Newell and H Fraser and it seems a little strange that Amy's mother was not a witness as well and gives cause for wondering if she might have disapproved of the match.

Henry Linden's birth was not registered in either England or Wales and from the Medical Register of 1863 we learn that although he qualified at Queen's College, Belfast he was registered as LRCP at Edinburgh and as a Licentiate of the Faculty of Physical Surgery at Glasgow, both in 1878. After that he was at 29 Laburnum Terrace, Antrim Road, Belfast between 1880 and 1881, and then on to Martello House. Thereafter his movements are uncertain, but as he was recorded in 1895 at Fairlawn, Tadley, Basingstoke as 'Late Surgeon Turco-Serbian Campaign and Zulu War, and Surgeon, Cunard Line' we can see that he was a much-travelled man. From 1896 to 1902 he probably had a more relaxed life, firstly at Compton Martin near Bristol and finally at Leyspring where he died on the 10 April 1916. Probate of his Will of 17 December 1913 was granted 20 September 1916 to his widow, his personal estate being £3597.5.10d all of which went to her as sole legatee.

Amy, sometime of Parkdale, 77 Malmesbury Avenue, South Woodford, Essex, died 13 April 1947 at Brooklands Nursing Home, 22 Fairlop Road, Leytonstone, London. Surprisingly, probate of the Will was granted at Bangor, North Wales to the National Provincial Bank Ltd. and Arthur James Hill, Inspector of Taxes, the estate being worth £6267.6.9d.

Edith Collins Merryweather the fourth daughter was born 15 November 1863 at 10 Brunswick Terrace and baptised at St Peter’s Bayswater 3 February 1864. She died in the summer of 1868.⁸

Philip Henry Collins Merryweather was born at 14 Colville Road, Kensington 8 September 1865. The 1881 census records him as a scholar at the Royal Medical Benevolent College, Epsom Downs, Surrey and the school register⁹ shows that he left in 1883 and was 'sometime resident in Bombay'. He is the only source of Merryweather cousins in recent generations, and although it is suspected that he died in India, no record has yet been found.

¹ Writing in his memoirs of Virgil's Aeneid.
² GM. 1855 Pt. II.
³ Minute Book of the Examiners of the Court of Apothecaries, London and in their Candidates Register 1848-52.
⁴ RG10/44/f.72.
⁵ Founded in honour of William Harvey (1578-1657), who had discovered the circulation of the blood in 1616.
⁶ RG11/41/f.91.
⁷ RG11/1454/f.59.
⁸ ONS Deaths Kensington, September 1868 1a 72.
⁹ T R Thompson, Ed. Epsom College Register 1855-1954, OUP, 1955. The College was formally opened in 1856 and later re-named Epsom College.