Vital Statistics
Sidney Hume Pinsent: 1879 – 1969 GRO0809 (Mechanical Engineer and Businessman, Buenos Aires, Argentina)
Beatrice Elena Le Bas: 1882 – 1956
Married: 1912: London
Children by Beatrice Elena Le Bas:
Harold Ross Pinsent: 1913 – 1988 (Businessman; Married Cynthia Mary Nelson Bobbett, 1941)
Paul Desmond Pinsent: 1915 – 1997 (Mechanical Engineer; Married Constance Kathleen Hamilton Heneghan, 1941)
Roger Philip Pinsent: 1916 – 1997 (Civil Servant; Married Suzanne Smalley, 1941)
Joyce Veronica Pinsent: 1918 – 1997 (Married Neville Walker Dunn, 1948)
Neville James Quintus Pinsent: 1921 – 2013 (Engineer; Married Rosemary Chiswell, 1949: Married Maria Luisa Paez, 1972).
Family Branch: Devonport
PinsentID: GRO0809
References
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Sidney Hume was the eldest son of Adolphus Ross Pinsent by his first wife, Alice Mary (née Nuttall). He was born in Montevideo, in Uruguay, in 1878 and returned to England with his family in 1890. Adolphus (or “Ross” as he was more commonly known) settled in Hampstead in London and helped build and manage companies with interests in South America. Sidney Hume attended Marlborough College, a “public” (private) school in Wiltshire in the mid-1890s (Marlborough College Register: 1843 – 1904). From there, he went to the “Municipal Technical School” in Birmingham – the city where two of his uncles ran the law firm of “Pinsent & Co.” After that, in 1902, he joined a Birmingham car manufacturer, the “Lanchester Engine Co.” as a “draughtsman.” Like many young men his age, he fancied himself as a driver. Sidney was dinged for “for furiously driving a motor car along Broad Street the 14th inst, at the rate of from 16 to 18 miles per hour.” He was summoned and fined 10s with costs (Birmingham Mail: 29th May 1903).
Sidney left the firm in 1904 and went out to Argentina, where he worked for the “Buenos Aires and Rosario Railway Company” as a “Technical Assistant” at its “Rosario Workshop”. He helped modernize and retool its operation and then left in 1907 to join the Buenos Aires engineering firm of “Franklin Herrara and Co.” That was the year he was elected an “ex-patriot associate” member of the “Institution of Mechanical Engineers” (Institution of Mechanical Engineers website) in London. After spending two years working as a “mechanical engineer” for “Franklin and Herrara,” he joined “H. Henry and Co.” of Buenos Aires. It imported machinery and generally acted as the local “agent” for British Companies working in South America. Sidney took over the business a few years later , in 1911, while, at much the same time as becoming a senior partner in the firm of “Pinsent Mathew & Co., Necochea 655, in Buenos Aires”, Argentina. This may have been one of his father’s companies. Sidney then applied for full membership in the “Institution of Mechanical Engineers” (Institution of Mechanical Engineers Membership List: 1911)!
Sidney Hume Pinsent Esq. had joined the “Royal Societies Club” by 1907 and presumably made use of it while home on family and/or business visits. The club helped professionals “of the better sort” to network and keep in touch with one another. His father, Adolphus Ross Pinsent and his uncle Hume Chancellor Pinsent, and his brother Cecil Ross Pinsent were also members. Sidney must have helped his father, Adolphus Ross Pinsent, considerably. Not many “company directors” would have had a technically competent son residing in Argentina. Ross seems to have arranged for Sidney to be appointed as “Technical Director” on the local boards of the “South Barracas Gas and Coke Co. Ltd.” and on the “Province of Buenos Aires Water Works Construction Syndicate”.
Sidney married Beatrice Elena Le Bas, the daughter of the “Uruguayan Consul” at Rosario, in London, in 1912. The couple, who were shortly to return to South America, spent their honeymoon driving through Southern England, where they were, unfortunately, involved in an automobile accident. The car Sidney was driving hit a horse and trap near Kingcombe, in Dorset, with enough force to cause a crash and damage both the car and the trap. Mr. and Mrs. Pinsent suffered only minor injuries but the trap occupants were not so lucky. One was much bruised and the other had several broken ribs (Southern Times and Dorset County Herald: 28th September 1912).
Shipping manifests tell us that Mr. and Mrs. Pinsent returned to Buenos Aires later the same year. They had five children in Buenos Aires over the next eight years: Harold Ross Pinsent, Paul Desmond Pinsent, Roger Philip Pinsent, Joyce Veronica Pinsent and Neville James Quintus Pinsent. The boys were educated at boarding schools in England and, I suspect, spent their holidays with their grandfather Adolphus Ross Pinsent and his second wife, Ethel Mary Philomena (née Whitelaw) in Tunbridge Wells, in Kent.
Although several ships’ manifests show that Sidney traveled between England and Argentina (presumably on business) in the 1920s, 1930s and in the 1950s; however, only a few of them show him traveling with his wife, Beatrice and/or their children. They seem to have spent their early life in Argentina before coming to England when they were of school age. Joyce Veronica Pinsent probably spent the “Second World War” in Argentina. Certainly, a Brazilian immigration card shows she was there for a visit in 1944. Joyce married an ex-patriot Englishman, Neville Walker Dunn, in Buenos Aires in 1948. They eventually returned to England. Joyce’s brothers came of age just before or during the war and they joined the armed forces. Their lives are discussed elsewhere.
Sidney Hume was the “General Manager & Engineer” at “Shaw Western Electric Co.” in Buenos Aires in 1927 (American Ceramic Society: Vol.10 #8) and was “Managing Director” of “Ferrum S.A. & Allied Companies, of Florida, 32, Buenos Aires, Argentina” (River Plate Personalities: W. J. Lamb, 1937) ten years later. The latter were, and probably still are (as far as I know), manufacturers of ceramic items such as sinks and toilets. He took at least two, presumably business related, trips to America in 1927 and in 1937. Sidney was on the “Council” of the “River Plate Branch” of the “Institute of Mechanical Engineers” in 1930, and on the “National” Branch in 1934 (Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History).
Beatrice Elena died in Argentina in 1956. Sidney Hume stayed on in Buenos Aires; however, he seems to have taken a trip down to Brazil to see his son Neville James Quintus Pinsent and his grandchildren (Rio de Janeiro Immigration Cards: 1900 – 1965) in 1961. His immigration card is available on-line. There is a photograph attached. Sidney Hume Pinsent died in Buenos Aires in 1969. He was 91 years old.
Family Tree
GRANDPARENTS
Grandfather: Richard Steele Pinsent: 1820 – 1864
Grandmother: Catherine Agnes: 1830 – 1906
PARENTS
Father: Adolphus Ross Pinsent: 1851 – 1929
Mother: Alice Mary Nuttall: 1855 – 1901
FATHER’S SIBLINGS (AUNTS, UNCLES)
Richard Alfred Pinsent: 1852 – 1948
Edith Mary Pinsent: 1853 – xxxx
Hume Chancellor Pinsent: 1857 – 1920
MALE SIBLINGS (BROTHERS, Half-Brothers)
Sidney Hume Pinsent: 1879 – 1969
Gerald Hume Saverie Pinsent: 1888 – 1976
Basil Hume Pinsent: 1911 – 2000
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