Vital Statistics
William Pinsent: 1812 – 1893 GRO1030 (Wheelwright and Coach maker, London, Middlesex)
Mary Ann Bright: 1813 – 1887
Married: 1833: London, Middlesex
Children by Mary Ann Bright:
Eliza Pinsent: 1833 – 1835
William Pinsent: 1835 – 1835
Emma Pinsent: 1836 – xxxx (Married William Mapp, London, Middlesex, 1865)
Maria Pinsent: 1839 – 1855
Esther Pinsent: 1842 – 1926 (Married Frank Gerrard, London Middlesex, 1868)
William Pinsent: 1847 – 1871
Eliza Pinsent: 1849 – xxxx (Married William Hotchen, London, Middlesex, 1868)
Alfred Frederick Pinsent: 1851 – 1902 (Married Frances Jane Dunk, xxxx, xxxx, xxxx)
James Primrose Pinsent: 1857 – 1860
Family Branch: Tiverton
PinsentID: GRO1030
William Pinsent was the youngest son of Benjamin Pinsent by his wife Esther Best. He was born in Holborn in London, where his father was a carpenter, and he grew up there with his one surviving brother (Benjamin Pinsent) and four surviving sisters (Ann, Sarah Lucy, Esther and Amelia Pinsent). Benjamin’s life is described elsewhere.
William married Mary Ann Bright in St. Pancras Old Church, in London on 1st January 1833. They had their first child Eliza later that year; however, she died when eighteen months old after the family had settled on Gilbert Street in Bloomsbury. She was buried there. The couple went on to have at least nine children – four boys and five girls – over the next twenty-four years. However, several died while still young and their names were re-used. Only one of the boys (Alfred Frederick Pinsent) lived to marry and have children. The girls did somewhat better. Three (Emma, Esther and Eliza) married. Maria was a sixteen year-old “fringe maker” when she died of typhoid fever in 1855. William’s brother Benjamin Pinsent and his wife Mira (née Burgoyne) suffered similar losses.
There were all-too-frequent outbreaks of cholera and typhoid in London during the first half of the nineteenth century. The cause only came to light in 1854 when a City doctor, John Snow, studied the morbidity returns for the parish of Soho and realized that a drinking-water pump on Broad Street must be producing contaminated water and responsible for the spread of the disease. The city’s sewage had been allowed to flow downhill into the Thames for centuries – which might have been fine in Tudor times but recent population growth made that mode of disposal not only untenable but also unbearable. The summer of 1858 was particularly hot and, for many years thereafter it was (not so fondly) remembered as “the year of the big stink”. The City fathers finally succumbed to public pressure and had one of their engineer’s (Joseph Bazalgette) design a system for collecting and pumping the sewage and releasing it into the Thames well below the point where it would back-up to London on the in-coming tide. It took several years to complete but it was worth it as the health (and smell) of the city improved considerably.
The early 1800s was a poor time to be a craftsman as population growth, mechanization and mass production reduced demand for bespoke items and whereas William and Benjamin’s father and grandfather were able to survive as craftsman, they could not. Both suffered periods of insolvency. William Pinsent, “formerly of No 14, Gilbert Street and late of No. 1 Woburn Court, Duke Street in Bloomsbury”, was brought up for a hearing at the Court House in Portugal Street in February 1835 (London Gazette: 6th February 1835). He was said to be a “labourer”.
William was back living on Gilbert Street in June 1841, when the census was taken. Interestingly, they had a three week-old infant in their household. I do not know who this was as Maria would have been over a year old and Esther yet to be born! Ten years later, in 1851, William was a “wheelwright’s assistant” living on Gilbert Street with his wife and three children Esther (8), William (4) and Eliza (1). His eldest child, Maria (who was a “scholar” aged 11) was living with her aunt Maria Hill and her cousin Emma Hill (14) elsewhere on Gilbert Street.
I have not found the William’s census record for 1861; however his daughter Esther (18) was a “servant” in a “surgeon’s” household in Great Russell Street. Interestingly, her younger sister Eliza (11) was there too. She was a “servant” and also a “scholar”. Esther was to marry Frank Gerrard, a “tailor” from St. Martin’s in the Fields parish, in November 1868 and Eliza was to marry William Hotchen, an “engraver,” there earlier in the same month. When they married, the two girls gave their father’s profession as “coach maker”. A few years earlier, when their sister Emma married William Mapp (a “car-man”) in 1965, she had referred to her father as a “wheelwright.” Presumably he made wheels for coaches!
I have yet to find Williams census data for 1871; however I know that his eldest son, William, died in St. George’s Hospital in Hanover Square that year. He was unmarried. His brother Alfred Frederick Pinsent’s life is described elsewhere. Suffice it to say that grew up to marry and have children in New Zealand. Sadly, William and Mary Ann’s youngest son, James Primrose, was not so lucky. He aged three years, in 1860. The name “Primrose” comes from his mother (Mary Ann née Bright’s) side of the family.
It is not clear when William Pinsent died. His “wife” Mary Ann (née Bright) was reported to be a “widow” living in the “Chelsea Workhouse” when the census was taken in 1881 and she was a “widow” when she died there, in January 1887. This certainly implies that her husband died earlier, probably in the 1870s; however, I can find no suitable candidate. There was a William Pinsent who died in the “St. Pancras Workhouse” in July 1893, so perhaps this was our man – other researchers (on-line) seem to think so.
Family Tree
Grandparents
Grandfather: Thomas Pinsent: 1738 – 1825
Grandmother: Anne Wright: 1740 – 1815
Parents
Father: Benjamin Pinsent: 1776 – 1819 ✔️
Mother: Esther Best: 1773 – 1868
Father’s Siblings (Aunts, Uncles)
James Pinsent: 1769 – 1833
Mary Pinsent: 1771 – xxxx
Dorothy Pinsent: xxxx – 1590
Benjamin Pinsent: 1776 – 1819
Elizabeth Pinsent: 1776 – xxxx
Male Siblings (Brothers)
Samuel Benjamin Pinsent: 1794 – xxxx
William Pinsent: 1795 – xxxx
William Pinsent: 1799 – xxxx
Benjamin Pinsent: 1805 – xxxx
Benjamin Pinsent: 1808 – xxxx
William Pinsent: 1812 – xxxx
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