Ellis Pinsent: 1619 – 1691 DRO0135 (Merchant in the City of Exeter, Devon)
Joan Felling: xxxx – xxxx
Married: 1651: Exeter, Devon
Children by Joan Felling:
Elizabeth Pinsent: 1652 – xxxx (Married Walter Ingram, St. Petrock, Exeter, Devon, 1683)
Mary Pinsent: 1655 – xxxx (Married John Whitborough, St. Petrock, Exeter, Devon, 1685)
Jonas Pinsent: 1657 – xxxx
Family Branch: Combe
PinsentID: DRO0135
Ellis was the fourth surviving son of Jonas Pinsent, by his wife, Elizabeth. Jonas was a rich lawyer and Ellis grew up on “Henstreet” in Bovey Tracey with four brothers – John, who died unmarried as a young man, Jonas, who stayed on in Bovey Tracey, Thomas who moved to Woodland parish and Edward, who became the vicar of Loddiswell. Their lives are discussed elsewhere. Ellis also had three sisters, Amy who died in infancy, Elizabeth and Johanna.
Jonas Pinsent (senior) was an attorney who served on the Court of King’s Bench, at Westminster and appeared on the Western Circuit. He seems to have spent much of his own time in court as well! – either as a complainant or a defendant dealing with his own legal matters – many of which were still resolved when he died in 1637. His eldest son and principal heir, Jonas, was left to deal with the fallout!
Ellis was a younger son and his father had him apprenticed to a merchant in Exeter instead of sending him up to university. Ellis moved to St. Petrock Parish, and was there in time to sign the, then near obligatory, “Protestation Return”. This showed his acceptance of the, then current, format of the Protestant Church in England. He seems to have been apprenticed to a Richard Cullinge in around 1646. Richard may well have been related to the William Cullinge who was to marry Ellis’s sister, Elizabeth, in Woodland in 1650 (The Roll of Freemen in Exeter (1266-1762).
Ellis himself married Joan Felling in St. Mary Arches parish, in Exeter, in 1651. They had three children (Elizabeth, Mary and Jonas) baptized in the nearby parish of St. Petrock. Ellis completed his apprenticeship but he seems to have continued to work with his erstwhile master, Richard “Cullen”, who had interests in Ireland. The Calendar of State Papers relating to Ireland: (Adventurer’s for Land: 1642-1659) refers to an assignment of goods that Ellis Pinsent “of Exeter, Mercer” made to William Hawkins of London of the “share which he has by assignment for Richard Cullen and which has fallen in the Co. Down …” in 1653. What else he did, I am not sure; however, he must have been good at it as Ellis and his wife paid 15s 6d in Pole Tax in 1660, and the Hearth Tax Returns for 1671 show that they had a house with five hearths.
In 1669, Sir Peter Fortsecue, bart. made a claim in Chancery against Ellis on the grounds that a few years previously he had stood as surety for a £300 loan that had now failed (C6/194/49). What that was about, I am not sure. However, around then we also find that “Elizeus Pinsent “of Exeter, merch, where he has lived for 25 years, aged 44” witnessed the inventory of an account of the goods of Bartholomew Pridham (Dean and Chapter Bundle 182: Moger Abstracts: Series II). If the dates are right, the inventory was taken in 1663, and he had been in Exeter since around 1638.
Later on in life, Ellis was sued by two London merchants, Thomas Blackmore and John Bollers. They claimed that he was in a partnership and thus had some responsibility for the debts of another Exeter trader, John Whitborough, who declared bankruptcy, in 1688. They told the court that John Whitborough owed them £3,000. In his Chancery deposition, Mr. Blackmore also claimed that John had transferred his land at Storridge, in Dunsford, and his shop and goods, which were worth £2,000, to Ellis – who just happened to be his father-in-law – to avoid payment. Moreover, he said that Ellis received £500 owing on debts to John Whitborough, and there had probably been several illegal side-deals made between John and his other creditors that were, of course, detrimental to the recovery of their debt. Thomas complained that Ellis had refused to give him any documents regarding the matter, and he asked the court to call for an accounting. Awkwardly, Ellis died while the case was still going on and it was left to his eldest son (yet another Jonas) to prove his father’s will and satisfy their demands.
The latter Jonas told the court that he had spent the past four years in the Army in Ireland, and had returned when he heard of his father’s death. He said that he found that his sister, Mary, and his brother-in-law, John Whitborough, living in Ellis’s house and said they had taken possession of his father’s assets. Jonas acknowledged that John Whitborough had transferred his land in Storridge to his father. however, he knew nothing of his father’s financial dealings and was having a great deal of difficulty getting his brother-in-law to account for his father’s estate which, he thought, should have been of considerable value (C6/373/10).
R. Dymock, in his history of St. Petrock Parish (Devon Assoc. Trans. XIV (1882), p482), describes a monument that was visible in the chancel of the church. He refers to a large stone floor slab with several intermingled inscriptions on it, including the following:
“Here lyeth the body of Mary Whitborough, grandchild to Mr. Ellis Pinsent. Here lyeth ye body of Mr. Ellis Pinsent, mercer, who died ye — day of July 1691. Also, ye body of Thomas Inglett son of Giles Inglett of Chudleigh, gent. Here lyeth the body of Ellis Whitborough, grandson to Mr. Ellis Pinsent, died 30th Jan. 1700. There was, in the middle of this description, a shield bearing the arms of the Pinsent family: “gules, a chevron engrailed between three etoiles of 6 points, argent”.
The presence of the coat of arms harks back to Ellis’s great grandfather, John Pinsent of Combe in Bovey Tracey and reflects his somewhat distant link to the “Pynsent” family and the Somerset and Wiltshire baronetcy. Ellis’s will was proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (147 Vere) in September 1691. He left his son, Jonas, two houses, one in Exeter then inhabited by Ezekiel Steed and one at Compson, in the parish of Hole. He also left him his property at Storridge in Dunsford – which was subject to an annual payment of £12 a year to Ellis’s daughter Mary Whitborough. This money was to be for her use only, and not that of her husband, John Whitborough who, having declared bankruptcy in 1688, Ellis must have thought could no longer be trusted with money! The will became a bone of contention between the two families and John Whitborough sued Jonas Pinsent in the Court of Chancery a few years later, in 1694 (C5/285-95).
I do not know what happened to Ellis’s wife, Joan; however, we know that his daughter Elizabeth married Walter Ingram, of Plymouth, in November 1683. His son, another Jonas, may have died in St. Thomas the Apostle parish, near Exeter, in May 1709. However, there are other possible candidates so that is less clear. There is nothing to suggest that this Jonas ever married or had children. Sadly, he is yet another loose end.
Family Tree
Grandparents
Grandfather: Hugh Pinsent: 1540 – 1626
Grandmother: Johanna Woodley: xxxx – xxxx
Parents
Father: Jonas Pinsent: 1575 – 1637
Mother: Elizabeth Unknown: xxxx – xxxx
Father’s Siblings (Aunts, Uncles)
Jonas Pinsent: 1575 – 1637
Peter Pinsent: 1576 – 1597
Rechord Pinsent: 1578 – xxxx
John Pinsent: xxxx – xxxx
William Pinsent: 1580 – xxxx
Margaret Pinsent: 1582 – xxxx
Mary Pinsent: xxxx – 1584
Thomas Pinsent: 1586 – xxxx
Agnes Pinsent: 1589 – xxxx
Hugh Pinsent: 1591 – xxxx
George Pinsent: 1593 – xxxx
Jane Pinsent: 1594 – xxxx
Matthew Pinsent: 1596 – 1616
Male Siblings (Brothers)
Jonas Pinsent: 1609 – 1658
Edward Pinsent: 1611 – 1652
Thomas Pinsent: 1615 – 1690
Ellis Pinsent: 1619 – 1681
John Pinsent: 1622 – 1648
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