Vital Statistics
Joseph William Pynsent: 1862 – 1926 GRO1198 (Dairyman, St. Kilda & Sydney, New South Wales, Australia)
Nellie Ellen Garland: 1864 – 1933
Married: 1886: Sydney, New South Wales.
Children by Nellie Ellen Garland:
Leila May Grace Pynsent: 1887 – 1924 (Married Joseph James White: Ashfield, New South Wales: 1907)
Elizabeth Mary Pynsent: 1890 – 1938 (Married Percy Gordon: Erskineville, New South Wales: 1910)
Joseph Burton Pynsent: 1890 – 1968 (Married Ethel Maud Budd: Canterbury, New South Wales: 1917)
Charles Pitt Pynsent: 1893 – 1975 (Married Margaret O’Donnell: Canterbury, New South Wales: 1931)
Beatrice M. Pynsent: 1894 – xxxx (Married James A. Philips: Kiama, New South Wales: 1914)
Alfred Francis Pynsent: 1896 – 1981 (Married Elsie Florence Jefferies: Canterbury, New South Wales: 1922)
Florence Lillian Pynsent: 1898 – 1986 (Married Alfred McGuiness: Marrickville, New South Wales: 1919)
Olive Gertrude Pynsent: 1900 – 2000 (Married Sydney J. Quill: Canterbury, New South Wales: 1923)
Thomas Ogden Pynsent: 1905 – 1980 (Married Lillian May Clough, Canterbury, New South Wales: 1931)
Dorothy W. Pynsent: 1908 – 1980 (Married Edward C. Burgess: Redfern, New South Wales: 1927)
Nellie Theresa Pynsent: 1910 – xxxx (Married Robert Francis Ball: Canterbury, New South Wales, 1929)
Family Branch: Hennock
PinsentID: GRO1198
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Joseph William Pynsent was the third and eldest surviving son of Joseph Burton Pynsent of Bristol and Melbourne by his common-law wife, Mary Bridget Fogerty. He was born in St. Kilda (where his father ran a dairy farm) in 1862 and was one of four siblings below the aged of twenty-two years (Mary Ann Theresa Pynsent, 22; Elizabeth Ellen Pynsent, 21; Joseph William Pynsent,16; and Alfred Thomas Pynsent, 9) who were left to run it when their parents died.
Joseph delivered milk for his father and was called to testify when a young girl he saw on his rounds was charged with murdering and improperly disposing of the body of her new-born baby (The Argus: 21 December 1872). It was probably still-born.
Joseph’s eldest sister Theresa (“Teresa”) took responsibility for the farm on Acland Street after her parents died and she was there with her brothers when, as discussed elsewhere, a strange horse accidentally found itself in their farmyard and in a panic managed to impale itself on a railing (Geelong Advertiser: 18 November 1886).
Theresa found herself in court on several occasions charged with allowing her cows to graze on public land in and around St. Kilda. Nevertheless, it was her brother Joseph (aged 16) who wrote to the “St. Kilda Municipal Council” in 1878 offering to pay £60 per annum for the right to graze the family’s cattle on (200 acres) of unsold and un-fenced property in the Borough – provided the council enforce the by-law that had cost them so much, and prevented other people from grazing their cattle on it. Unfortunately, the issue was complicated by the legal status of much of the land and the proposal was shunted off to St. Kilda’s “Public works Committee” where it almost certainly died (The Telegraph, St. Kilda, Prahran and South Yarra Guardian: Saturday 19th October 1878).
Joseph’s sisters both married in 1883: Mary Ann Theresa Pynsent married Edward Taylor and moved to South Yarra, and Elizabeth Ellen Pynsent married Paul Reinhold Carl Boehm and left to live in Newport, in Victoria. The boys seem to have found it too difficult to run the farm on their own, and they gave up the lease. Joseph moved to Sydney in New South Wales, and Alfred Thomas, his younger brother, moved to Hotham, in Victoria. He was later to join the “New South Wales Imperial Bushmen” and fight in the Boer War.
Joseph Pynsent married Nellie Garland, the youngest daughter of the late Mr. Joseph Garland of Hobart in Tasmania at St. Peter’s Church, Woolloomooloo, in East Sydney, in January 1886. According to Sydney’s Local Directories, the couple could be found running a small dairy farm near the Old South Head Road in Bondi (just south of the Royal Sydney Golf Links) near the coast the following year. The family lived on Simpson Street. Evidently the dairy flooded in February 1890 and two lads “who had taken refuge in an outhouse were rescued with considerable difficulty through the roof” (Sydney Morning Herald: Friday 21st February 1890). There was considerable erosion and loss of land and some of the cows were destroyed and buildings damaged; nevertheless, the dairy survived. Two years later, John Bede Regan was charged with maliciously causing damage to one of Joseph’s slate roofs. He was fined £3 and ordered to pay 1s in damages – so it can’t have been too severe (New South Wales Police Gazette: 6th March 1892).
Joseph Pynsent was ambitious, and he ran as an alderman for Bondi Ward, in South Sydney in 1900 (Sydney Morning Herald: Tuesday 6th February 1900; The Daily Telegraph: 5th February 1900). He failed, but came second.
Two years later, he arranged that the city’s milk vendors form a union (Sydney Morning Herald: 18th April 1902). This may have been a response to growing complaints about the quality of the milk being sold as, a few years later, he told the union that the only way to do away with bad practice was for the Government to regulate the quality of the product sold (Evening News: 25th January 1908).
He had another opportunity to run for Municipal Office in 1904 and was thought to be the likely winner. In doing so, he appealed to the electorate by saying “ratepayers of Bondi Ward, do not pledge your votes: J. W. Pinsent (sic), a local man, is a candidate, and will serve you faithfully” (Sydney Morning Herald: Saturday 9th January 1904). However, for some reason or other, “pressure of business” he later decided to back out of the race (Sydney Morning Herald: 3rd February 1904).
Joseph and Nellie had nine children (Leila May Grace; Elizabeth Mary; Joseph Burton; Charles Pitt; Beatrice M.; Alfred Francis; Florence Lillian; Olive Gertrude; and Thomas Ogden Pynsent) while living in the Bondi (part of Waverley) and he or they probably out-grew the dairy. He went in search of a bigger one and bought the “Warren Dairy” farm in nearby Marrickville in around 1907 (Sands Directories: Sydney & New south Wales: 1858-1933). Perhaps it was less prone to rising damp! The family lived on Illawarra Road, near Northcote Street, which places the farm near Henson Park and what is now Marrickville High school. While there, they had two more children (Dorothy W. and Nellie Theresa).
Money may have been tight in those days as Mr. Pynsent of Canterbury (presumably Joseph William) impounded a bay gelding from its paddock and threatened to arrange to have it sold by the “Pound-Keeper” in 1909 – unless he was paid the guinea its owner owed him. (Government Gazette: New South Wales: Wednesday 25th August 1909).
Joseph, meanwhile, had his professional reputation to protect. A government inspector accused him of watering down his milk and thus being out of compliance with the “Pure Food Act,” and he was charged with adulterating his milk in February 1910. The New South Wales Government prosecuted Joseph “Pinsent” at Ashfield County Court. He pleaded not guilty. The inspector stated that when Joseph saw him coming, he jumped down from his cart and carried a milk-can into the dairy. When he returned, the inspector bought a sample from the cart and then demanded to buy some out of the can he had seen being taken away. Joseph offered up some milk but it was not clear to the inspector that it had come from the right can. Later, the inspector showed his badge to Mrs. Pinsent and asked to buy milk from a can he saw inside her kitchen door. She said it was not for sale, but he took some of the milk anyway and paid. He later found that it was adulterated with 8.24 per cent of water. The magistrates considered Joseph’s behaviour suspicious but without a valid sale they felt that they had to dismiss the case (Evening News: Monday 7th February 1910). Perhaps he got lucky. However, he objected to the way the case had been cast in the newspaper and had his solicitor submit a rebuttal a few days later (Evening News: Friday 11th February 1910).
In 1914, Mr. Cunningham, a Sydney milk vendor applied to the Courts for an injunction “to restrain, for a period of six months, Denis Grey, Cyril Carpenter and “Bery” (sic) Pinsent, formerly employed by him as carters from disclosing the names and addresses of his customers or endeavouring to obtain their custom or in any way interfering with them for that purpose” (Sydney Morning Herald: Thursday 1st January 1914). My guess is that “Bery” was Joseph’s son Joseph Burton Pynsent. It was obviously a competitive business and “carters,” it seems, rarely signed confidentiality agreements! Joseph Burton seems to have had a troubled past. Evidently he went missing for a while in 1908 (New South Wales Police Gazette and Weekly Record of Crime: 1st April 1908).
Joseph Burton’s brother Alfred Francis Pynsent also got into trouble now and then. On one occasion, a Mrs. Henrietta Maxted sued him for £150 in damages for injuries she claimed he had been caused by his negligence in managing a horse and sulky. He denied culpability but the court awarded her £15 for her pain and suffering (Sydney Morning Herald: Friday 20th February 1920). It was better than nothing. His life is described elsewhere.
Joseph William and Nellie (née Garland) were Roman Catholic. They had eleven children over twenty-seven years and, perhaps surprisingly, they were only predeceased by one of them. All eleven lived and married in the greater Sydney area, where they created an extended family that seems to have kept in fairly close contact for a couple of generations. They established the Pynsent brand in New South Wales and their descendants are still there.
Joseph’s eldest child, Leila May Grace “Diddie” Pynsent married Joseph James White, in Ashfield, New South Wales, in 1907. She died in June 1924. The use of nicknames in this family is a nuisance as some are hard to attribute! Leila’s mother “Nellie” (née Garland) was probably baptized as Ellen but she married and lived her life as “Nellie”. Leila’s sister Elizabeth Mary Pynsent (who had a twin brother, Joseph Burton Pynsent) evidently married Percy Gordon, a van-driver in Erskineville in 1910. She died in 1938 and her passing is noted in an “In Memoriam” announcement posted in the Sydney Morning Herald on Monday 5th June 1939. It reads: “In Memoriam: PYNSENT: In loving memory of our dear mother, Nellie, died June 4, 1933; dear father, Joseph, died June 8 1926; also sister Bess, died February 27 1938. Inserted by Tom, Dorrie, Bon, Lil, Eddie, Bob”. Who “Bon” was is far from clear. Eddie and Bob were, presumably, Dorothy and Nellie’s husbands.
William Joseph’s second daughter Beatrice Pynsent married James A. Philips in Kiama, New South Wales, in 1914 and his third, Lily Florence Pynsent married Alfred Francis McGuiness, a packer, in Marrickville in 1919. William Joseph’s fourth daughter, Olive Gertrude Pynsent married Sydney J. Quill in Canterbury in 1923 and his fifth and youngest, Nellie Theresa Pynsent married Francis Ball in Canterbury in 1929. They all seem to have had children; however, they are not listed here. The various families are fairly well documented on line and it should be possible to trace at least some of their kin.
As for the four boys, we find some familiar names. Joseph William and Nellie named their eldest son Joseph Burton Pynsent. He married Ethel Maud Budd in 1917 and had two sons of his own. Following the same theme, Joseph and Nellie named their second son, Charles Pitt Pynsent. Charles married Margaret O’Donnell in Canterbury in 1931 and he too had at least one son. Joseph William’s third son was Alfred Francis Pynsent. Alfred married Elsie Florence Jefferies in 1922 in Canterbury and had several children including four boys. Joseph William’s youngest son by Nellie (née Garland) Thomas Ogden Pynsent married Lillian Mary May Clough in Canterbury in 1931. They had sons as well. Their lives are discussed elsewhere.
Joseph William “formerly of Bondi but lately of Marrickville, near Sydney, New south Wales, retired dairyman” died in June 1926. He was interred in the Catholic cemetery at Rookwood. His will, with a codicil attached, was probated in the “Supreme Court of New south Wales” (Sydney Morning Herald: Saturday 12th June 1926). His widow, Nellie (née Garland) died seven years later, in June 1933 (Findagrave-Australia).
In 2010, Mrs. Nellie Theresa Ball (née Pynsent) provided the City of Canterbury Library with photographs and other information about her father, Joseph Pynsent, for an exhibition on local business ventures that was to be held in the Campsie Library. She was 100 years old at the time. Online sources show that she described how he “owned and operated dairies in the Canterbury district including “Great Britain”, “Dartmore” (sic) “Ivy Bridge” and (also) what was to become Walker’s Dairy.”
The family had not forgotten its Devonshire roots. In fact, an item in the Evening News (19th May 1893) shows that Joseph lived at “Chudleigh” on the Old South Head Road in Bondi. The dairy was known as “Pynsent’s Dairy” when it advertised for a dairyman in 1917 (Melbourne Argus: Tuesday 17th April 1917). Mrs. Ball goes on to say that her father purchased what would later become “Walker’s Dairy” (located on Page Street, off Northcote Street, in Canterbury) and other land in the neighbourhood in around 1907, which fits with the Electoral Rolls. He sold the dairy to Mr. Walker four years before he (Joseph) died. Sydney was fast encroaching and Mr. Walker sold some of the land for housing.
Joseph William Pynsent died in June 1926 leaving his estate in the hands of a solicitor, Mr. William Heath Moffitt, in Sydney (Government of the State of New South Wales Gazette: 17th May 1926).
Family Tree
Grandparents
Grandfather: Joseph Pinsent: 1770 – 1835
Grandmother: Elizabeth Pinsent: 1777 – 1809
Parents
Father: Joseph Burton Pinsent: 1806 – 1874
Mother: Mary Bridget Fogarty: 1832 – 1875
Father’s Siblings and half-siblings (Aunts, Uncles)
Mary Anna Lambert Pinsent: 1802 – 1809
Joseph William Pitt Burton Pinsent: 1804 – 1805
Elizabeth Satterley Pinsent: 1805 – 1878
Joseph Burton Pynsent: 1806 – 1874 ✔️
John Robert Pinsent: 1807 – 1808
Mary Anna Pynsent: 1810 – 1875
Anna Lucretia Pynsent: 1812 – 1880
Harriet Cordelia Pynsent: 1814 – 1900
Maria Sophia Pinsent: 1815 – 1819
Robert Baring Pinsent: 1818 – 1833
Ferdinand Alfred Pynsent: 1822 – 1894
Charles Pitt Pynsent: 1824 – 1903
Male Siblings (Brothers, half-brothers)
Thomas Ogden Pynsent: 1839 – 1864
Burton William Pynsent: 1856 – 1856
Burton Michael Pynsent: 1861 – 1876
Joseph William Pynsent: 1862 – 1926 ✔️
Charles Pynsent: 1865 – 1878
Alfred Thomas Pynsent: 1869 – 1911
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