His maternal grandfather, the Guernsey privateer John Allaire, was mortgaged the fief of Sark by the island's seigneur, Ernest le Pelley, in 1844.

The Seigneur's successor, Pierre Carey le Pelley, was unable to pay the mortgage and thus had to sell Sark to Marie Collings, Allaire's heiress.

Much like the Le Pelleys had done when they purchased the fief a century earlier, Collings used the family fortune–acquired by privateering–to expand and renovate his residence, La Seigneurie.

In 1855, in keeping with his ecclesiastical background, Collings gave land to the church for a new cemetery and, striving to discourage vice, had a prison constructed on the island.

The Seigneur narrowly escaped drowning, but never recovered his baggage, which contained the original charter of Queen Elizabeth I's 1565 grant of Sark to Helier de Carteret.