Several Pinsents have migrated to Australia over the years and not all the current crop of Australian Pinsents come from the same family. For instance, Joseph Pinsent (1819 – 1881) [BRISTOL Branch] married Elizabeth Snell and settled in New South Wales in 1850; Joseph Burton Pynsent (1806 – 1874) [HENNOCK Branch] went out to Victoria with his son in 1852 (a year after the Ballarat goldfield was discovered) and Horace James Pinsent (1896 – 1972) [TIVERTON Branch] took off for Victoria in 1922. All three went with the intention of settling and their descendants can still be found “down under”.
The AUSTRALIA branch is probably another outgrowth of the BRISTOL Branch derived from an early marriage between William Pinsent (1811 – 1879) and Sarah Eales (see below). Their son Thomas James Pinsent went out to Victoria in Australia with his wife, Elizabeth James, shortly after their marriage in 1856 and he became the founding father of the Branch. His father, William Pinsent (1811 – 1879) stayed on in England, married Harriet Morgan in Gloucestershire and had a second family that belongs to the BRISTOL Branch of the family. It can be found elsewhere.
The following is a brief summary of the AUSTRALIA Branch of the Pinsent family. For a full list of family members visit the FAMILY BRANCH page and for more information on selected sons click through and read their biographies.
Australia
William Pinsent (1811 – 1879) was a “tailor” who married Sarah Eales in Plymouth in 1832. They had a son Thomas James Pinsent (1833 – 1915) there the following year and a daughter, Elizabeth Pinsent, in Exeter in 1836. I do not know of any other children and it seems likely that Sarah died sometime in the late 1830s – thereby freeing up William to remarry.
The 1851 Census shows that Thomas James trained to be a “baker” in St. Helier, on Jersey in the Channel Islands and his marriage certificate shows that he was still living there when he married Elizabeth James in 1856. They emigrated to Australia shortly afterwards. Thomas’s sister Elizabeth followed her brother out to Australia in 1861 and married there, in 1864.
Thomas James Pinsent (1833 – 1915) purchased land in Daylesford in Victoria in 1864 but later settled in Melbourne where he lived on Alexandra Parade in Fitzroy and ran a bakery. He had his hand slapped a couple of times for operating with inaccurate scales but otherwise appears to have run a successful business. He had four surviving sons, another Thomas James Pinsent (1858 – 1932), Joseph Henry Pinsent (1863 – 1945), Charles Samuel Pinsent (1864 – 1930) and William John Pinsent (1866 – 1905). Of these, only the first three can be shown to have married and had families.
Thomas James Pinsent (2), his eldest son and namesake, was an artist who made his living as a “sign writer” in the Fitzroy area. He married Clara Jessica Candy in 1886 and had a short-lived son, Albert Gladstone Pinsent (1893 – 1894) and a daughter, Elsie Beatrice Pinsent (1895 – xxxx). Elsie married Harold V. Moritz in 1923. Her mother, Clara, died in 1899 and Thomas James married Ellen Oldfield three years later. They had a son Raymond George Pinsent (1913 – 1983) who was a clerk. He married Ruby Margaret Anderson and they, in due time, had a son Colin George Pinsent (1949 – 2013) who died relatively recently. They also had a daughter who could still be alive today. Colin married and had three or more children, including two sons, so his part of the line almost certainly continues.
Thomas James and Elizabeth’s second son, Joseph Henry Pinsent, was a “carter” who most likely delivered bread for his father. He later became a baker in his own right. He married Annie Edith Miller, in 1885 and they had a son, Arthur Henry Pinsent (1886 – 1971) and a daughter, Mary Elizabeth Pinsent (1889 – xxxx) before their marriage was ended in the divorce court, in 1913. Mary Elizabeth achieved a brief moment of fame, in 1907. The newspapers show that while she was working as a clerk in an office in Melbourne, she heard a couple of “bumps” coming from the office above. She did not think much of it at the time; however, she later discovered that what she had heard was a man being murdered upstairs.
Annie Edith (née Miller) was evidently a going concern. Several years after the divorce, she became the sole proprietor and licensee of the “Royal Hotel”, later renamed “Pinsent Hotel”, in Wangaratta, Victoria. She later married a Brigadier General! Presumably he frequented the hotel. Annie died in 1936 and the hotel was sold. However, it is still in business as “Hotel Pinsent”. After the divorce, her erstwhile husband, Joseph Henry Pinsent, married Emma Strange; however, I am not aware of any children by this second marriage.
Annie’s son Arthur Henry Pinsent helped his mother at “Hotel Pinsent.” He also became a commercial traveller and later a comptroller in a store in Melbourne. He was an avid cricketer who played for local Community teams in Fitzroy and Middle Park, in Melbourne and was named a selector for the Victoria Cricket Association, in the early 1940s.
Arthur Henry married Catherine Mary Lynch in 1907 and had four sons, Norman Arthur Pinsent (1914 – xxxx), Ronald Francis Pinsent (1915 – 1983), Allan Henry Pinsent (1917 – 2002) and Arthur James Pinsent (1921 – 2000), all of whom married and some of whom may have offspring living in Victoria today. Norman Arthur was a “watersider” or dock labourer. Like his father, he was an avid cricketer. He married and had a daughter. His younger brother, Ronald Francis, meanwhile survived a motorcycle accident, in 1938 and went on to become a commercial dispatch supervisor. He seems to have married twice; however, I am not aware of children. The younger brothers Allan Henry and Arthur James were both in sales. They both appear to have married and had sons to continue the family line. Arthur James, needless to say, also played cricket!
Thomas and Elizabeth’s third son, Charles Samuel Pinsent (1864 – 1892) was a painter, although of what type, I am not sure. He married Edith Mary Dear in 1892 and they had five sons and one daughter, Elizabeth Edith Pinsent (1892 – xxxx) over the next ten years. Sadly, three of the boys died young: Alfred Samuel Pinsent (1895 – 1896), Clement James Pinsent (1898 – 1898) and George Watts Pinsent (1902 – 1902). Only Harold Charles Appleford Pinsent (1894 – 1985) and William Watts Francis Pinsent (1900 – 1977) seem to have grown to adulthood.
Charles Samuel and Edith Mary went out to Western Australia in the early 1900s but came to blows (literally) and parted company. Edith returned to Melbourne in 1914 only to find that her husband had served her with divorce papers. Local newspapers tell us that she promptly went to Court and accused him of being physically abusive. She applied for a maintenance – which the court granted (The Truth, Melbourne: Saturday 15th August 1914). Edith Mary died in 1924.
Harold Charles Appleford Pinsent served with the Australian Imperial Force, in France during the First World War. He rose through the ranks to become a Lieutenant, and he received a Military Cross for gallantry in 1918. Evidently he led his platoon in the capture of three enemy machine gun positions. After the war, he became a commercial driver. He married Hilda Muriel Rossbotham in 1919. I am not aware of any children. She died in 1975 and he may have remarried.
Harold’s younger brother, William Watts Francis, was born in Freemantle, in Western Australia and became a photographer. He married Eva Dorothy Truscott, a dressmaker, in 1924 and moved to Sydney in New South Wales. They had a daughter there, and may have had other children that I am not aware of.
There are a lot of Pinsent’s from several branches of the family currently living in Australia.They are not named and I do not claim to know anything about the young ones; however, this should provide a broad outline of one of the principal AUSTRALIAN lines. Remember, there are others.
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