Fr Austin (Henry) Collins was born at Barningham in Yorkshire in 1827. After education at Rugby and Durham university where he read law, Henry was ordained in the Church of England and worked as an Anglican priest in Leeds and London. He became a Catholic at the age of 30 and became a Catholic priest two years later in 1859, becoming chaplain to Ambrose Lisle Phillips who lived at Grace Dieu Manor near Shepshed. As chaplain he came to know Mount Saint Bernard’s, and entered the community, making his solemn profession in 1869