Vital Statistics
William Thomas James Pinsent: 1914 – 1996 GRO0915 (Spice Merchant, London, Middlesex)
Ethel Mary Fearnley: 1916 – 2001
Married: 1938: Morden, Surrey
Children by Ethel Mary Fearnley:
William Joseph Pinsent: 1944 – 2017 (Married Wife GRO1468, 1968)
Son (GRO0755)
Family Branch: Tiverton
PinsentID: GRO0915
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William Thomas James was the eldest son of William George James Pinsent, a wholesale “spice merchant” who ran his business out of St. John’s Lane in Clerkenwell, which is near the centre of the City of London. He grew up in Stoke Newington in north London alongside two younger brothers (Leonard Albert Walter and Ronald Bertram Horace Pinsent) and one younger sister (Joyce Elizabeth Rose Pinsent).
William and Leonard played soccer for the Palmer’s Green Club in the mid 1930s. William was an effective forward who played for its First XI (Wood Green and Southgate Weekly Herald: 5th November 1937) and Lawrence Albert was a member of its, second, or reserve team (Wood Green and Southgate Weekly Herald: 15th March 1935). On one occasion, William’s Palmers Green team had a fixture with Sporting Club Hazebrouckoise, a visiting Flemish team. Sadly, they lost. 3 – 0 (Wood Green and Southgate Weekly Herald: 20th September 1935).
William Thomas married Ethel Mary Fearnley in Morden, in Surrey in 1938. She was an “electric cooking demonstrator” who was living on Carmelite Road in the City of London when the War-time Register was compiled, in 1939. Her husband was a “married commercial traveller” (A.F.S. B/13808) and the compilers caught up with him lodging in Finsbury. William Thomas had trained for the family business and he was designated a “spice merchant” when he joined the Royal Army Service Corps. He was promoted to corporal. William Thomas and Ethel Mary had two sons. The elder, William Joseph Pinsent, became a solicitor and the younger followed in his father and grandfather’s footsteps and joined the spice trade. They both married and had children. Their families are still living in the Home Counties (i.e. around London) today.
William Thomas and Ethel Mary were living on Brixton Hill in London in 1946 and on Winterfold Close in Putney in 1957 (London, England, Electoral Registers: 1947 – 1965). They spent a few years living on Toynbee Road (near Liverpool Street Station) and then left the City and moved to Ashtead, near Leatherhead, in Surrey, in 1973. William Thomas James Pinsent was a “retired spice merchant” when he died there in 1996. His widow, Ethel Mary Pinsent stayed on and died there in 2001.
William Thomas Pinsent formally incorporated his father’s spice business as a private company in 1950. It continued to operate out of St. John’s lane in Clerkenwell. In 1982, the Company sued “R. & R. Butchers’ Casings and Sundries Limited” in the High Court of Justice (Chancery) over a matter of debt (London Gazette: 9th September 1982). Perhaps as a result of this action and certainly after David Smith joined the firm it seems to have diversified into “Butchers’ Sundries”.
“W. G. Pinsent Ltd.” left London in around 1988 and it now (2019) operates as a small private company based in Rainham, near Romford in Essex. The firm may well have imported spices for a while after the war; however, since the retirement of William Thomas Pinsent, in 1996, it appears to have specialized in selling “butchers’ sundries” and “wholesale meat products” (www.companieshouse).
William Thomas James’ two sons both married. William Joseph Pinsent, the elder of the two, became a solicitor in Surrey. The line seems set to continue.
Family Tree
GRANDPARENTS
Grandfather: William John Pinsent: 1869 – 1918
Grandmother: Rose Emeline Parsons: 1872 – 1950
PARENTS
Father: William George James Pinsent: 1892 – 1963
Mother: Maud Eleanor Spall: 1892 – 1939
FATHER’S SIBLINGS (AUNTS, UNCLES)
Sidney Henry Pinsent: 1895 – 1979
Henry Thomas Pinsent: 1896 – 1897
Leonard Charles Pinsent: 1898 – 1974
Rose Marguerita Pinsent: 1900 – 1918
Violet Pinsent: 1902 – xxxx
Bertram Horace Pinsent: 1904 – 1967
Ivy Lilian Pinsent: 1909 – xxxx
Marguerite Florence Ethel Pinsent: 1911 – 1911
Marguerite Winifred Pinsent: 1913 – 2006
MALE SIBLINGS (BROTHERS)
Leonard Albert Walter Pinsent: 1916 – 1995
Ronald Bertram Horace Pinsent: 1921 – 1942
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