Vital Statistics
Walter Pinsent: 1897 – 1947 GRO0873
1. Mabel Annie Wright: 1898 – 1931
Married: 1919: Shepshed, Leicester, Leicestershire
Children by Mabel Annie Wright:
Walter Pinsent: 1921 – 1921
2. Doris Osborne: 1910 – xxxx
Married: 1934: London, Middlesex
Family Branch: Tiverton
PinsentID: GRO0873
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Walter was the only son of Ernest Arthur Pinsent by his wife Florence Deacon. He was born on Ridley Street, in Leicester, in 1897. His father died in 1902 and he probably grew up alongside the rest of his father’s family on Western Road until his mother married George Arthur Gray, in Wigston Magna in Leicestershire, in 1907.
Walter joined the army in 1912 – before the “First World War”. He started out as a “driver” with the “Royal Field Artillery” (No. 398) but later transferred to the “Lancashire Fusiliers” (No. 236016). Walter saw active service overseas during the war and he was eligible for the “British”, “Victory” and “Star” medals when discharged in February 1919.
Walter may have found it difficult to adapt to civilian life. He, and eight of his friends, were fined by the Magistrates for gambling after being caught playing “Banker” – an illegal card game – in a field outside Shepshed in 1920 (Leicester Daily Post: Thursday 14th October 1920). He was also one of two “labourers” fined for breaking into the local drill hall and helping themselves to a few beers (Leicester Daily Mercury: Wednesday 28th November 1923).
Walter left the army as an “engineer’s fitter,” which was his trade when he married Mabel Annie Wright, the daughter of a “coal merchant” in Shepshed in 1919. She ran a drapery (Kelly’s Directory, 1915) and he seems to have joined her in running it. According to the 1921 census, he was a “dealer in drapery” and she was a “dressmaker” and they were both “working on their own account.” Walter was said to be a “master draper” when their son, also called Walter, was born in Hall Croft, Shepshed that same year. Sadly, he died within a few days of birth. He had no other children that I am aware of; however, he stole a pair of boy’s boots anyway, in October 1929. In court, he claimed it was “an impulse of the moment” (Leicester Daily Mercury: Wednesday 2nd October 1929). Walter’s wife, Mabel died in Loughborough in 1931.
Walter moved to London, where he became a “driver” for a haulage contractor. He married a “restaurant waitress,” Doris Osborne, in Southwark Registry Office, in 1934. They had no children.
Walter was an “incapacitated married patient” living in a Convalescent Home in Brighton, Sussex when the Wartime Register was compiled in 1939. It is not clear what his wife, Doris Pinsent, was up to at the time! Although there are some redacted names and she may have been among them. Walter became a “lift attendant” at “Paddington Hospital” towards the end of his life. He died in March 1947 leaving effects, valued at £103, that passed to his widow, Doris (England and Wales National Probate Calendar: 1858-1966). She most likely died in Surrey in 1986.
Family Tree
GRANDPARENTS
Grandfather: Charles Pinsent: 1842 – 1882
Grandmother: Susannah Bagshaw: 1844 – xxxx
PARENTS
Father: Ernest Alfred Pinsent: 1877 – 1902
Spouse: Florence Oram or Deacon: 1878 – xxxx
FATHER’S SIBLINGS (AUNTS, UNCLES)
Elizabeth Pinsent: 1865 – xxxx
George Henry Pinsent: 1867 – 1934
Walter Pinsent: 1869 – 1950
Annie Pinsent: 1872 – xxxx
Harriet Pinsent: 1875 – 1959
Florence Pinsent: 1880 – 1901
Maria Pinsent: 1885 – 1943 * Illegitimate
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