Vital Statistics
Arthur Pinsent: 1888 – 1978 GRO0072 (Lecturer in Education, University of Aberystwyth, Dyfed)
Hilda Mabel West: 1895 – 1957
Married: 1916: Leicester, Leicestershire
Children by Hilda Mabel West:
Philip James Noel Pinsent: 1921 – 2007 (Married Constance Evadne Pierce, 1949, Liverpool, Lancashire)
Brian Roy West Pinsent: 1925 – 1997 (Married Olywn Mary Winifred Tuck, 1949, Dowlais, Glamorganshire)
Family Branch: Tiverton
PinsentID: GRO0072
Arthur was the eldest son of Adrian (a.k.a. “George” Pinsent) and Hannah (née West). He was born in Belgrave, in Leicester and was brought up with a much younger brother, Harold West Pinsent. The two boys had a sister Doris Mabel Pinsent but she died in infancy in 1898. The family could be found living on Justice Street in Leicester at the time of the 1891 census but it had moved to Gipsy Street by 1901.
Arthur, unlike most of his peers, attended high school and then college – which changed the course of his life. He was almost certainly the Arthur Pinsent chosen to receive a scholarship to Wyggeston School in 1901: “Nine girls and six boys from various schools in the parish were examined. The results of the examination was that Ellen Dexter and Arthur Pinsent obtained the highest number of marks, both of whom Mr. Ellicock reported were likely to be greatly benefited by a course of instruction at a higher school” (Midland Free Pree: 27th July 1901).
Arthur received a scholarship at “University College of Wales” in Aberystwth in 1909 (Aberystwyth Observer: Thursday 1st July 1909) and moved there while he was still a young man. His mother, Hannah (née West), probably came from a Methodist family and that may have had something to do with it! Arthur took an active part in university life. He played cricket for the “College” (Welsh Gazette and West Wales Advertiser: May 30th 109) and was an active member of its “Students Christian Union.” He was a talented musician and had a good voice and he (evidently) gave a sympathetic rendering of “early in the morning” at a smoker at the Oriental Café in June 1909 (Aberystwyth Observer: 1st July 1909). This was followed by a pianoforte solo at a “Musical Missionary Meeting” organized in conjunction with the “Women’s Temperance Association” in November 1909 (Aberystwyth Observer: Thursday 4th November 1909). He not only gave pianoforte solos, but he acted as accompanist at social events (Aberystwyth Observer: Thursday 25th November 1909). Arthur spoke up at meetings and he was quickly elected secretary of the “Students Christian Union.”
Arthur passed his intermediate exams in August 1910 and he is described in the 1911 England and Wales census as being a single, 22 year-old, science student boarding in Aberystwyth. Arthur must have returned home periodically and he was likely the “A. Pinsent” who played cricket for Belgrave in the summers of 1911 (Leicester Daily Post: Monday 17th July 1911) and 1912 (Leicester Evening Mail: Saturday 13th July 1912). It was probably this “A. Pinsent” who played field hockey for the Leicester Y.M.C.A. in 1912 (Leicester Evening Mail: Monday 21st October 1912) and was evidently well regarded. He suffered some kind of injury during a match played against Hinckley in October 1912 (Leicester Evening Mail: 22nd October 1912).: – “An unfortunate accident to Pinsent, the Y.M. centre-forward, considerably retarded his side’s chance of victory.” He had fully recovered by the following January and was back playing with the team (Leicester Evening Mail: Tuesday 21st January 1913).
The Melton Mowbray Mercury and Oakham and Uppingham News (Thursday 27th February 1913) tells us that when the Leicester Y.M.C.A. 2nd played Rugby 3rd: “If one man stood out more prominent that the others in the Y.M.C.A. eleven, it was A. Pinsent. He played brilliantly …”. There were other young “A. Pinsents” around in Leicester at the time as Arthur, and this could, I suppose, refer to one of them. However, he was probably the man. Sadly, sport for many young men came to an untimely end at the outset of the First World War.
Our man had many talents. He was a member of the “University College” debating team and took part in a debate with the local “Theological College”on the optimal style of Governance for Great Britain (“Monarchy, Aristocracy or Democracy”). Arthur argued for a Constitutional Monarchy – saying that, “under aristocracy it was impossible to find those exceptionally clever men who would be able to estimate the wants of the people. If aristocracy was the best form of government it would persist in other countries, but it was substituted by representative government. The objection to democracy was that the masses were indifferent and uninformed about politics. Monarchy was a stable system, embracing what was best in the two other systems. Under a hereditary monarch, no class prejudice was inflamed and the monarch was more than a figurehead, for the personal interest was an unifying factor and its greatest strength.” His remarks were described “as being distinguished for (its) terseness and clear expression of his arguments.” Nevertheless, the Theologians won out on this occasion with their support for the aristocracy (Cambrian News: Friday 18th November 1910)!
Arthur studied science (chemisty) at U. C. of W. (Aberystwyth). He passed his intermediate exams for matriculated into “London University” in August 1910 (Cambrian News: Friday 19th August 1910) and graduated from there with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1911. He then returned to Leicester, where he taught at the “Leicester Municipal Secondary School” until 1915. He may have had a particular interest in adult education as he was on hand for the “44th Annual General Meeting of the Sanvey Gate Adult School” in January 1915 (Leicester Daily Post: Tuesday 12th January 1915).
Arthur joined the army. Unfortunately, his record of service is unclear. He seems to have started out as a private in the R.A.M.C (“Royal Army Medical Corps”) – which is what he was when he married Hilda Mabel West at the “Primitive Methodist Church” in Claremont Street in Leicester, in June 1916. However, he clearly became an officer in R.E. (“Royal Engineers”) – which was quite a step up in those days!
Whether Arthur saw active service during the war, I am not sure. However, I rather suspect not – and that he was given administrative assignments. He was, unquestionably, the “Capt. Pinsent” who reported to the “Ministry of Munitions, Trench Warfare and Chemical War Departments, the War Office” (and other related agencies) on the production at Anti-gas Factories in Nottingham in 1918 (WO 142/261). For this, or some other reason, Temporary Captain Arthur Pinsent, R.E. was awarded an M.B.E. (Membership in the order of the British Empire) in the Birthday Honours in 1919. It was for “valuable services rendered in connection with the war.” Many years later, Arthur wrote up his wartime experience in pamphlets entitled “Some Memories of the Activities of the R.E. Anti-gas Establishment During the Great War” and “Lest We Forget” (an account of the work of John Bell, “Hills Lucas Ltd.” (Oxford Works) in making gas masks during the First World War. His son, Dr. Brian Roy West Pinsent has donated the pamphlets to the “Imperial War Museum.” Arthur was a “Temporary Captain, R.E.” when he came to be de-mobilized (presumably to the Army Reserve) in 1919, (London Gazette: 4th April 1922).
Arthur seems to have worked on resource management issues as well as on gas attack protection during the war, and he gave a prescient talk entitled: “The Future of Motive Power” to the Whitstable “Congregation of Young People Society” in December 1921. In it, he stressed that industrialized nations needed cheap and reliable sources of energy and pointed to the importance of Britain’s past and (then) present exploitation of its coal resources. He went on to recognize the value of natural gas and petroleum, and he pointed out that they were finite and must, someday, run out. He speculated that hydroelectric and nuclear power might be brought into play, but he feared that “Unless this question of fuel and motive power is settled we cannot hope for freedom from war” (Whitstable Times and Herne Bay Herald: Saturday 10th December 1921). Well done Arthur. This was a hundred years ago!
Arthur’s wife Hilda had been a schoolteacher before she married. The two of them were living on Dartmouth Park Road in London when the census was taken in 1921. Arthur was a “tutor” employed by the “Ministry of Labour” at “Hornsey Rise Training College” and Hilda was at home entertaining two visitors – Arthur’s brother Harold West Pinsent and his then girl-friend but soon to be wife, Lilian May Kirk. They were both employed by “G. Ward Limited” of Curzon Street in Leicester. He was a “commercial traveler” and she was a “correspondence clerk. Arthur and Lilian had two sons. The first, Philip James Noel Pinsent, was born in Leicester later that year. The second, Brian Roy West Pinsent, was born in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, in 1925 – shortly before Arthur moved his family back to Wales.
Arthur taught and later managed teachers of ex-servicemen while he worked on his “Master of Education” degree at the University of London. He graduated in 1921 and he was appointed “Head Master” of “Handside School” in Welwyn Garden City, in Hertfordshire, two years later. It was a position he held until offered the job of “Senior Lecturer in Education and Master of Method” at the University College of Wales (Welsh Gazette; Thursday 17th December 1925). He spent the rest of his career there.
Arthur took a particularly active part in University life and – what ever his personal position on educational methodology was – he argued for the motion “That the retention in our modern educational system of examinations and lectures is deplorable” at a Staff Debate held in December 1925. He won, of course (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 9th December 1926)! One has to feel some sympathy for Miss L. Winstanly who argued in the negative. Not only was Arthur a seasoned debater – but it was his field of expertise, after all. A few years later, he was back arguing in the negative to the proposition: “That this House deplores the present system of Education”. This time he lost! (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 5th November 1931). Apparently, his peers were unhappy with the current state of affairs.
While at Aberystwyth, he was called upon to give talks to the “College Scientific Society” on “Imagination and Intuition in Science” (Western Mail: Tuesday 13th March 1928), again to the “Scientific Society” on “The influence of physical science on the development of scientific psychology” (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 15th November 1928) and to the “Cardiganshire Teachers Association” on “Curricula and Methods for Reorganized Schools” (Western Mail: Monday 17th June 1929. He certainly had a high profile and the University Senate saw that he was awarded a “Traveling Scholarship” in 1929 (Western Mail: Thursday 16th May 1929).
Arthur found time to play cricket for the College staff and he quickly made a name for himself. He took seven wickets in a match played against the College “A” student team in May 1927 – and in so doing helped the University College Staff win by six runs (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 12th May 1927). He took another seven wickets in a match against “St. David’s College School” the following year (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 28th June 1928). He clearly approved of matches arranged “with the object of promoting social intercourse between the tutorial staffs of the various colleges and Universities of Wales.” (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 5th July 1928). There were, doubtless, many other matches. For instance, I know he played for the University College staff in a match against “Swansea University College Staff” in 1929 (Western Mail: Friday 31st May 1929). This was a full twenty years since he had first played for the university college as a student back in 1909.
Before the Second World War, “Ardwyn”, the local Grammar School in Aberystwyth, held an annual Eisteddfod on St. David’s Day. The various school “houses” competed for a challenge cup and the school gave certificates and/or prizes for music, poetry and recitation. In the 1920s, the school called upon Arthur to adjudicate the more literary of the English language items. He stopped doing so when his sons joined the school. This was to avoid any suggestion of conflict of interest (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 8th March 1928 etc.).
Both of Arthur’s sons were bright and good at English. They had the advantage of having very bright English-speaking parents. For many young Welsh boys of their age, English would have been a second language and, thus, a challenge. In 1931, the elementary school children in and around Aberystwyth were taken to the Cinema and then asked to write English essays on the films they saw. The best received book prizes. It must have been a good way of teaching the language (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 25th 1931). Needless to say, “Jimmie Pinsent” of Alexandra Road (boys) School, did well.
James Pinsent (a.k.a. Philip James Noel Pinsent) later moved to “Ardwyn School” and took his English skills with him. He came first in the Eisteddfod “junior” competition with his essay in 1933 (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 2nd March 1933). He came second the following year and won again in 1935. He also did well in his “Central Welsh Board” examinations; receiving certificates in English, History, Latin, French (oral proficiency), Arithmetic (with credit) and biology (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 5th September 1935). He also won a separate prize for Latin (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 20th February 1936). James, received one of the “Head Master’s Service and Leadership” prizes shortly before he graduated in 1939 (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 23rd February 1939) – perhaps in recognition of his contribution to a one act play “The House with the Twisty Windows” the school put on the previous year (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 22nd December 1938). He received his “High School Examination Certificate” in August 1939 (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 31st August 1939) – just as the Second World War – and went up to Liverpool University to study “veterinary science”. His life is described elsewhere.
Jim’s younger brother Brian Roy West Pinsent (or “Roy” as he was known) won a prize from the local branch of the “League of Nations Union” for an essay on “Peace” that he wrote while attending “Alexandra Road (boys) School” (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 25th April 1935). He later joined his brother at “Ardwyn” and competed in its Eisteddfod English essay competitions. He too, did well and he gave the second best “short speech” in his final year at school. He received his “Central Welsh Board, Higher School Certificate” in March 1942 (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 5th March 1942) and was awarded an “Honorary Exhibition” from the “Cardiganshire Education Committee” for his pains (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 24th September 1942). Brian Roy West went on to become a “research chemist”. His life, like that of his brother, is discussed elsewhere.
Arthur recognized the connection between psychology and education, and he wrote numerous articles for the “British Journal of Educational Psychology” and the “Journal of the Institute of Psychology”. In one of the former, he examined the value of prior teaching experience in those seeking formal training in the teaching profession. He found the results were mixed – it depended more on the nature of the experience than just having it (The Mercury: Hobart, Tasmania: Saturday 6th January 1934).
In addition to his normal course work as a lecturer, Arthur was a member of the “Extra Mural Department” and he (along with many others) gave free lectures (in English) for the benefit of the public and the Armed Forces. In 1944, he gave six lectures on “Education in the Modern World” (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 21st September 1944) and also in the following year: “Mr. A. Pinsent, M.A., master of method in the Education Department of Aberystwyth University College. The Subjects discussed will include “Schools of Yesterday and Today,”, “Schools of Tomorrow.”, “Is Education worth while?”, “Education for citizenship and vocation” and “The place of religion in State education.” They included a discussion of the new “Education Act” and were, evidently, “well attended and informative” (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 1st February and 15th March 1945). His Extra-Mural course the following year was entitled “Electricity” (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 26th September 1946) – which was a change in pace. It harks back to his talk in Whitstable in 1921 (above).
After the war, the University College in Aberystwyth ran annual “summer” and/or “vacation schools” and it usually fell to Arthur to provide the inaugural lecture. Times were changing, and his topic in 1951 was on the effect of changes being brought about by the 1944 Education Act. He though that “educational methods would in time be turned inside out. Education should no longer be thought of in terms of examinations, but of psychological development” (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 2nd August 1951). Did it? I am not qualified to say. The college did recognize that “professional development” was important – it ran a “Refresher Course” for teachers of physics in Grammar Schools – which was something (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 3rd August 1950).
Arthur was particularly interested in the education of young farmers and he supported the “Young Farmer’s Clubs” that were then being set up around the country and he participated in a week-end course set up for club leaders in October 1943 (Welsh Gazette: 14th October 1943). The following year, 230 club delegates turned up for a gathering in Aberystwyth at which Arthur gave them a talk on leadership (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 9th November 1944). He spoke at a “Senior Club” leaders’ course in Lewes, in December 1945 (Crawley and District Observer: Saturday 13th October 1945) and in 1947, the Welsh branch hosted a course for Commonwealth and foreign students who wanted to learn about Welsh farming methods – which, in most cases, would been very different from their own! On this occasion, Arthur gave a talk about the value of “Young Farmers’ Clubs” and how they could educate people about the countryside (The Daily Gleaner: Kingston, Jamaica: Friday 25th April 1947). The colonial students were in Wales to examine its “Pattern of Rural Life”. Evidently, “Mr. Pinsent said it was possible that students would see some points of interest and value in their visit which might be applicable to their own communities overseas but ideas developed in rural Wales could not be applied in detail without modifications to rural communities in the West Indies, Africa or China” (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 24th April 1947). I am sure he was right about that.
Arthur’s love of horticulture extended to gardens and allotments and he was, himself, a member of the “Aberystwyth Gardens and Allotments’ Association.” He joined its committee in December 1940, when a vacancy occurred after an incumbent left to join the forces (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 26th December 1940). When Arthur left for London – which he did in 1948 – the chairman expressed how sorry the Association was to have lost such an active member (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 26th February 1948).
Although Arthur stayed home in Wales during the Second World War he, nevertheless, played his part. As the officer in charge of the cleansing station, he worked with the “St. John Ambulance Brigade” to train teams of men and women to handle casualties in the event of a bomb or gas attack on Aberystwyth (Welsh Gazette: Thursday August 28th 1941). It was a position he was eminently qualified for. I doubt if the cleansing station was ever called upon. Arthur must have been particularly concerned about the effects of gas – given his experience during the First World War. He also worked to see that recently arrived evacuees had somewhere to play. Sports grounds were early casualties of the war – they were taken over as encampment sites for the army and/or dug up as part of food production. This left a lot of children with nowhere to go. Arthur wrote to the Council and it “considered a letter from Mr. Pinsent, asking whether the Council would consent to certain of the tennis courts being marked out and used by evacuees as netball pitches. The sub-committee recommended that the tennis courts be not used for netball, and that Mr. Pinsent be offered Caebach, the old County School playing field or any unoccupied portion of Plascrug Flats” (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 19th October 1939). Which was a win, of sorts.
The war was disruptive for everyone and the Chairman of the “District Education Committee” suggested that a panel of advisers be formed to assist school leavers find suitable employment. He felt it would be “profitable to secure the good offices of Mr. A. Pinsent, senior lecturer in education at Aberystwyth University College, who had taken great interest in vocational psychology” (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 17th February 1944). Arthur was much in demand.
Arthur had other interests over and beyond teaching, cricket and horticulture. He certainly spoke at “Teacher’s College” dinners (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 16th May 1929) and join the “Cricket Committee” as a (non-playing member (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 1st May 1930) and had an alotment, but he was also politically active. He leaned to the left and gave a talk entitled “The Raw Material of Politics” to the “Labour Club” sometime after his return to Aberystwyth (Weekly Gazette: Thursday 15th December 1927).
The 1939 War-time Register shows Arthur living with his wife, Hilda Mabel and their son Brian Roy West (who was by then a “student”) on Penglais Road in Aberystwyth. His sister-in-law, Lilian M. Pinsent (who was member of the “Nursing Auxiliary Service”) was also there at the time of the survey. Her husband (Arthur’s brother), Harold West Pinsent was away in Colne, Lancashire, on business. Their lives are discussed elsewhere. Whether Arthur’s eldest son, Philip James Noel Pinsent, was at home at the time is unclear but there is a redacted line in the entry, so he may have been.
During the Second World War, Arthur was an active member of the local branch of the “British Soviet Friendship Committee.” He tried to drum up contributions for the “British Hospital” in Stalingrad in July 1943 (Welsh Gazette: 10th June 1943) on behalf of the committee and, in January 1944, thanked a Mr. Harold Watkins for giving a talk in which he “stressed the fact that Russia’s military strength was based on her economic strength, and that the heroic fight put up by the Russian forces and the Russian people was a tribute to Lenin, the architect of the country’s economic structure” (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 20th January 1944). The committee held a pictorial exhibition the following month that extolled the merits of “Soviet Youth and the War” (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 24th February 1944) and Arthur acted as question-master at a “Brain’s Trust” panel discussion on “Labour’s New Britain” that was held in Aberystwyth in July (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 27th July 1944). All this seems to have had an effect as: “About 2,000 people visited the exhibition of Soviet posters, toys, etc. at the Town Hall last week. The Exhibition was opened by the Mayor on Monday, and on the following day short addresses on subjects relating to the U.S.S.R. were given by Mr. Pinsent, Mr. Levine, Mr. Platt, Mr. T. E. Nicholas and Mr. Atkinson. A sum of money was raised towards the British Soviet Friendship House in London” Welsh Gazette: Thursday 16th August 1945).
After the war the “British Soviet Friendship Committee” continued to promote all things Russian, at least for a while, and in July 1946 Arthur’s wife, Mrs. H. M. Pinsent (Hilda) presided at a meeting where a vote of thanks was given to the outgoing president, Mr. Harold Watkins. Arthur stayed on as its “treasurer” (Welsh Gazette: 18th July 1946). He was vice-chair and presided at its Annual meeting in October 1947 (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 9th October 1947). Presumably he retired from the committee when he moved up to London the following year.
Arthur’s wife, Hilda became had become an active member of the Aberystwyth branch of the women’s section of the “British Legion.” We know that her fellow Legionnaires were quick to congratulate her on her recovery after having an operation she had in 1936, (Welsh Gazette: 11th June 1936). She gave the ladies “an interesting account of her holiday in the Pyrenees” the following spring (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 8th April 1937) and was elected to its committee that autumn (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 14th October 1937). The organization – which seems to have been similar to the “Women’s Institute” in England – was shortly to turn to war work and by November 1939 she was handing out wool and patterns for knitting projects (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 2nd November 1939).
Hilda was elected vice-chairman of the Women’s Section of the “British Legion” in November 1945 (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 8th November 1945) and became chairman the following year. The Gazette shows that she was extremely active in that role. Perhaps her daughter-in-law-to-be, “Ms. P. J. Pinsent” (Constance Evadne nee Pierce (?)) helped. However, that could be an error (Welsh Gazette: 1st August 1946). There were commonly between 100 and 160 people in attendance at the “Legion’s” meetings – which sometimes featured an invited speaker such as Miss Evans, “technical adviser” to the “Ministry of Labour,” who gave them an address on “Nursing as a career” in April 1947 (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 10th April 1947).
Mrs. H. M. Pinsent presided at a “Cardiganshire County Committee” meeting of the women’s section in March 1948 – when it presented its “Standard Bearer’s Cup”. On that occasion, she talked about on a Welsh regional meeting that she had recently attended in Wrexham as a County delegate. Evidently, she had, while there, stressed the need for more convalescent homes to be built in Wales (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 4th March 1948). In her capacity as a “British Legion” chairman, she, with others, established a local “Townswoman’s Guild. “ It was agreed that it would be called the “Aberystwyth Central Townswomen’s Guild” and meet at the Y.M.C.A on the last Tuesday of every month (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 18th March 1948). Hilda joined the guild and she reported back on a visit she made to the “Festival of Britain” in September 1951 (Welsh Gazette: 27th September 1951). She was elected to its committee and appointed chair of its “Civics Sub-committee” a couple of months later (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 15th November 1951).
Arthur accepted an appointed to the “National Foundation for Educational Research in England and Wales,” in Slough, outside of London in 1948 and the couple moved to London. However, it was not long before he was seconded back to the “University of Wales Faculty of Education” as a “Research Officer” (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 20th July 1950). He was appointed “Secretary of the Faculty of Education” at University College Wales (1950 to 1953) and made the “Old Students Association’s” representative on the “Court of Governors” (Welsh Gazette: 13th April 1950).
Hilda and Arthur had put their house, “Red Gables,” on Penglais Road up for sale in May 1948, before moving to London. They both must have missed its “Well-laid out Flower Borders, Productive Kitchen Garden including choice specimens of Fruit Trees” (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 20th May 1948). Hilda had, regretfully, resigned from the “British Legion” and told the ladies that “she was sorry to part with the many good friends she had made in the Women’s section and wished the branch every success in the future” (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 17th June 1948). Apparently, “nearly one hundred members” were at the station to witness her departure that October. They gave her a bouquet of flowers (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 7th October 1948). In fact, as fate would have it, Hilda and her husband were back in Aberystwyth by February 1950 (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 9th February 1950) – and so she was once again an active “Legionnaire” two years later.
The Legionnaires were not alone in regretting Hilda’s departure for London. Since 1947, she had also been a member of the “Sixty Club” (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 18th December 1947). I am not sure where it fits in; however, it seems to have been connected to the local “Housing Society” (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 2nd December 1948). One of her committees arranged the Children’s Christmas Party in November, 1951. Hilda was on-board with it, but “expressed concern about raising the necessary £80 to £100” necessary (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 8th November 1951).
Arthur Pinsent wrote a book entitled “Principles of Teaching Method” (Harrap: 1941) and he contributed three chapters to a “Symposium on Psychology” in 1945. He was a prolific writer and he wrote one (of many) articles on university education for the first issue of the “Journal of the Welsh Guild of Graduates” – “The Welsh Anvil” – in 1949. In it, he observed that “Most university students go there with a single-minded purpose,” he writes: “to get a degree or a diploma which will take them into a better job, and they are sure that, lectures are arranged for no other purpose than to make the listeners miserable.” Not exactly a ringing endorsement. Evidently he saw the “problem against the background of a changing world” and realized that the universities needed to adapt to modern times (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 4th August 1949).
Arthur did more than write about education – after returning to Aberystwyth, he helped to arrange for a new Secondary Modern School at Dinas (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 13th July 1950) and to develop its curriculum. At one of the many committee meetings held on the subject, a Mrs. Evans of Llandre who was thinking of the local community asked “if provision would be made in the plans for the teaching of biology with an agricultural bias, and buildings to house small livestock”, to which Arthur responded “that it did not follow that if children lived in a rural area they would be likely to spend the rest of their lives there.” Clearly, there was much to discuss and it was agreed that more input was needed and thought required (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 11th January 1951). There were other issues to resolve as well. Evidently, the board of Governors had to decided who was in charge of children on a school bus – the “teacher” or the “conductor”. Arthur felt that it should be the school teacher – which seems reasonable to me. In other business, Mrs. Lewis Evans thought that a school washing machine should be bought locally – Arthur; however, felt “the prime consideration should be to buy good quality goods on the best possible terms” (Welsh Gazette: Thursday 15th November 1951). The school opened in November 1955 and received some of the students from the senior school at Alexandra Road.
In 1952 Arthur co-edited and co-authored a “Survey of Rewards and Punishments in Schools” (Contemporary Authors: Permanent Series) with Dr. Miriam Highfield. It explored what teachers and children then thought about corporal punishment. Evidently, boys feared exposure to their parents above anything else, and then restrictions of their activities, such as sports, and being more closely monitored by teachers, far more than they did a caning. Girls too would generally prefer a caning to a bad report to their parents. Teachers, however, believed that a “good talking to” and extra work were the most effective punishments they could mete out (Examiner: Launceston, Tasmania: Saturday 15th March 1952). A vast majority of teachers approved of retaining corporal punishment – as a last resort.
Among many other issues, Arthur addressed the “Construction and Use of Standardized Tests of Intelligence and Attainment: With special reference to the problems of a mixed language area” in a pamphlet published by the University College of Wales in 1954. Wales was, in those days, far more bilingual than it is today and “mixed language households” would have been common. At the same time, he revised and expanded his “Principles of the Teaching Method” and saw it re-released as “Principles of Teaching Method: With Special Reference to Secondary Education” (Very: 1969).
Arthur and Hilda moved to North Parade on their return to Aberystwyth in the 1950s, and Hilda died while there in 1957. Her husband Arthur, who was by then a “retired lecturer” received probate for her estate. He died in Aberystwyth – after a very impressive life it must be said – in January 1978 (England and Wales: National Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations) 1858 – 1995). My father had the privilege of meeting him.
Family Tree
Grandparents
Grandfather: James Pinsent: 1831 – 1902
Grandmother: Emma Jackson: 1831 – 1903
Parents
Father: Adrian Pinsent: 1864 – 1945
Mother: Hannah West: 1865 – 1934
Father’s Siblings (Aunts, Uncles)
Hannah Martha Pinsent: 1857 – xxxx
Georgiana Pinsent: 1859 – 1925
James Pinsent: 1862 – 1936
Adrian Pinsent: 1864 – 1945 
Fanny Pinsent: 1866 – 1940
Charlotte Ann Pinsent: 1868 – xxxx
Emily Pinsent: 1870 – xxxx
Arthur Edwin Pinsent: 1872 – 1938
MALE SIBLINGS (BROTHERS)
Arthur Pinsent: 1888 – 1978
Harold West Pinsent: 1900 – 1962
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