Vital Statistics
John Pynsent: 1571 – 1643 GRO0021
Joan Downham: 1578 – 1625
Married: Chudleigh, Devon: 1596
Children by Joan Downham:
John Pynsent: 1598 – xxxx
Humphrey Pynsent: 1599 – 1680 (Merchant, Chudleigh)
Mary Pynsent: 1603 – 1604
Anthony Pynsent: 1603 – 1605
Robert Pynsent: 1605 – 1679 (Married Anne Bettenham, Lawyer, Bromley, Kent)
Elizabeth Pynsent: 1606 – xxxx (Married Thomas Washer, Exeter, Devon, 1634)
John Pynsent: 1607 – 1668 (Married Mary Clifford, Westminster, London, 1631)
William Pynsent: 1608-1643 (Married Anne Lancelot, Stepney, London, Middlesex: Merchant, London)
Grace Pynsent: 1610 – 1670 (Married William Tothill)
Eleanor Pynsent: 1613 – 1678
Family Branch: Combe
PinsentID: DRO0021
John Pynsent, the son of John Pynsent and Alicia (née French), was born in Chudleigh in 1571. His parents had had an earlier son of the same name who was baptized in Bovey Tracey in 1560. Perhaps he died young, however, some legal documents discussed elsewhere suggest that there was a John Pinsent of around his age alive in 1602. Perhaps they are one and the same. However, there were several families in the district and this John may have come from one of them. Our John was the son of a successful local merchant. His father “farmed” (i.e. ran) the local market and managed an inn in the town. John grew up in Chudleigh, received his education there and, presumably, gradually over time took control of the family business.
Dr. R. R. Sellman, who corresponded with my father in the 1960s shows that a John Pinsent (probably John “senior”) was “marketman” in Chudleigh from 1603 to 1613, and paid £100 for a five-year lease on the market and St. Matthew’s Day Fair in 1614. Chudleigh was developing into an important centre for the Devon wool industry and, given the price he paid for it, “farming” the market must have been a lucrative business. Although John “senior” may have signed the papers in 1614 it would likely have been our man, John “junior,” doing much of the work. His father was over seventy years old.
John Pinsent “Junior” seems to have audited the accounts of the “four men” chosen to manage the town from 1612 to 1615 and he appears to have been appointed one of them after his father died. He served from 1617 and 1623. John was paid “for engrossing a deed” in 1617 and was made the town’s “supervisor of highways” in 1623. There were “eight men” running Chudleigh in 1627 and – once more according to Dr. Sellman – “they met monthly at his (John’s) house.” John remained active in municipal affairs, and, in 1640, he was one of the “four men” responsible for organizing the repair of the leat or waterway that brought potable water to the town.
The civic management of Chudleigh both before and during the English Civil War is described in Mary Jones’s (1875) book: “The History of Chudleigh.” It is also discussed in considerable detail in “The Chudleigh Book,” published by the Chudleigh History Group (2009). The issue has also been addressed on line on the “chudleighhistorygroup.uk” website.
When John’s son (the prothonotary in the Court of Common Pleas) submitted his simplified family tree to the Heralds for the Visitation of Surrey 1662-8 [D. 15, fo. 63b] he showed that his father was “in commerce” in Chudleigh, that he was a “gentleman” and he was thus entitled to his father’s coat of arms – which is shown with the tree.
John married Joan, the daughter of William Downham, of Collumpton, and had six sons: however, only four lived to manhood. Three of them are shown on the tree; from left to right they are, (1) John (the prothonotary), (2) Humphrey (the man who took over the family business in Chudleigh) and (3) Robert (a lawyer in Kent). The fourth son, the prothonotary’s youngest brother William (who was a Merchant in London) was left off the tree because he had died in 1643. Interestingly, the order suggests that John was the first born!
The lives of all four surviving sons and their descendants are described in the attached booklet: “The Pynsent Baronetcy: The Trials and Tribulations of a Litigious Family: 1687-1765.” This history of the COMBE branch of the family starts with its early days in Chudleigh, goes through the life and times of the Prothonotary, during and after the Civil War, and then explains how John’s brother William’s son, another William Pynsent, used his inherited wealth to purchase a baronetcy from King James I. Sadly, the baronetcy was short-lived. The first Sir William Pynsent’s son, another Sir William, outlived his own family – which included a wayward son! – and left his entire estate to “The Great Commoner”, William Pitt. Pitt used it to purchase an earldom and promptly abandoned the House of Commons and relocated to the House of Lords as “William Pitt, Earl of Chatham.” At least he had the decency to showed his appreciation for the bequest by building the “Burton Pynsent Monument” on Troy Hill in Curry Rivel.
John and Joan (née Downham) had four daughters. One, Mary, died young but the other three reached maturity. Elizabeth married Thomas Washer, a lawyer, and Grace married William Tothill, a local gentleman. Eleanor, the youngest, stayed home and looked after her parents while they were alive and then kept house for her brother, Humphry, who never married. They all played their part in the history of the Pynsent baronetcy and their lives are described in the book.
Family Tree
Grandparents
Grandfather: John Pinsent: xxxx – 1575
Grandmother: Johanna Unknown: xxxx – 1570
Parents
Father: John Pinsent: 1532 – 1615
Mother: Alice French: xxxx – 1612
Father’s Siblings (Aunts, Uncles)
John Pynsent: 1532 – 1615
George Pinsent: xxxx – 1598
Thomas Pinsent: xxxx – xxxx
Elizabeth Pinsent: xxxx – xxxx
Hugh Pinsent: 1540 – 1626
Margaret Pinsent: 1542 – xxxx
Walter Pinsent: 1544 – xxxx
Mary Pinsent: 1546 – xxxx
Johanna Pinsent: 1549 – xxxx
Male Siblings (Brothers)
John Pynsent: 1560 – xxxx
George Pynsent: 1566 – 1566
John Pynsent: 1570 – 1570
John Pynsent: 1571 – 1643
William Pynsent: 1573 – xxxx
Bennett Pynsent: 1575 – 1575
Please use the above links to explore this branch of the family tree. The default “Next” and “Previous” links below may lead to other unrelated branches.