His cousin A. E. J. Collins held the world batting record for 116 years to January 2016 for his innings of 628 not out at Clifton College.

[4] After completing his studies at Cambridge, Collins returned to New Zealand, where his most successful cricketing years were with Wellington in the 1920s.

During this decade he scored four of his six first-class centuries, including the largest (and his last), 172 against Auckland in the 1924–25 Plunket Shield.

In the match at Christchurch he scored 102,[7] while at the Basin Reserve, as captain, he hit a second-innings 69.

[10] One of their daughters, Susie Collins, was the New Zealand women's golf champion in the late 1930s.