Vital Statistics
George Albert Pinsent: 1924 – xxxx GRO0349 (Soldier & pile-driver, xxxx)
1) Phyllis May Durham: 1924 – xxxx
Married: 1945: Sidcup, Kent
Children by Phyllis May Durham:
Son (GRO0356)
Son (GRO0716)
Son (GRO0070) (illegitimate)
2) Wife (GRO1540): xxxx – xxxx
Married: xxxx: xxxx, xxxx
Children by Wife (GRO1540):
Daughter (GRO0824)
Daughter (GRO0589)
Family Branch: Tiverton
PinsentID: GRO0349
George Albert was the second surviving son of Thomas William Pinsent by his wife Florence (née Perkins). He was born in Andover, in Hampshire, and grew up there with an elder brother and two sisters. His father had been a soldier during the First World War but, afterwards, had switched to the Royal Air Force afterwards and was “Aircraft’s man 2nd Class” when his children were born. He later left the air force to join the Post Office “GPO.” His life is described elsewhere.
George joined the Merchant Navy in 1941 and was a sixteen-year-old “M.R. Boy” (“Machine Room Boy” (?)) when the S.S. Robert F. Hand docked in New York in August that year. The crew manifest had been checked by the American Consulate in Bristol before he left. It shows that he was 5 ft 7 ins tall and weighed in at 155 lbs. He was registered as an alien and, unlike most of the crew who had their passports (temporarily) retained, he “had no documents detained.” Presumably he did not have a passport. He probably served throughout the Second World War.
George Albert was a “clerk” when he married Phyllis May Durham in Sidcup in Kent in 1945. The couple moved to Essex where they were shortly to have two children. George was to become a labourer in the construction business; however, he did not lack ingenuity. He (probably with the help of his father who worked for the Post Office!) devised a method of defrauding Scottish bookmakers by sending falsely timed betting slips through the mail (Aberdeen Evening Express: Tuesday 7th June 1955). He placed the slips in a parcel that was designed to break open in transit and release a falsely timed, pre-stamped letter. Unfortunately, someone saw him preparing one of the parcels and he was charged. The presiding judge was impressed: “Mr. Justice Byrne told him: “I confess that your fraudulent devices is the most ingenious I have yet come across and obviously you are a determined and skilful user of it” (Aberdeen Evening Express: Wednesday 15th June 1955). George had been charged for three similar offences three years earlier and had had 25 others “taken into consideration” – so he had “form.” He admitted to stealing money and jewellery from a house in Southend and he was given an additional, sentenced of 18 months for that, to run concurrently with the five years for the three main charges (Liverpool Echo: Wednesday 15th June 1955).
The sentence may have been too much for Phyllis who, by then, had two young sons on her hands. The couple divorced and she married Charles William Castle, a driver for the Gas Board in Brentwood, in Essex, in August 1956. Phyllis had had a third son just two weeks earlier and he was christened as a “Pinsent,” but may well have been a “Castle.” Phyllis took her sons into her second marriage, and it is worth noting that the younger of the two “Pinsents” formally abandoned the surname and took up the name “Castle” in 1975 (London Gazette: August 1975).
George Albert, meanwhile, may have married Wife (GRO1540); however, I have no record of it, and it may have been a common-law arrangement. They had at least two daughters. The first was born in Billericay, in Essex and the second in Fobbing in the same county. Wife (GRO1540) is reported to have had an illegitimate son the following year and George may well have been the father.
George was a pile driver working in Essex when his daughters were born; however, I can find no further mention of either him or of Wife (GRO1540). Perhaps they emigrated.
Family Tree
GRANDPARENTS
Grandfather: Thomas Henry Pinsent: 1873 – 1910
Grandmother: Bessie Ada Penn: 1872 – 1964
PARENTS
Father: Thomas William Pinsent: 1895 – 1974
Mother: Florence Perkins: 1896 – 1947
FATHER’S SIBLINGS (AUNTS, UNCLES)
Jessie Harriet Pinsent: 1893 – 1898
Thomas William Pinsent: 1895 – 1974
Joseph James Pinsent: 1897 – 1923
Bessie Louisa Pinsent: 1900 – 1902
Alfred Pinsent: 1902 – 1977
James Valentine Pinsent: 1908 – 1908
MALE SIBLINGS (BROTHERS)
Thomas William Pinsent: 1916 – 1923
Alfred James Pinsent: 1920 – 1992
George Alfred Pinsent: 1924 – xxxx
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