Vital Statistics
Thomas Pinsent: 1806 – 1839 GRO0840 (Agricultural labourer, Bovey Tracey, Devon)
Mary Mugford: 1808 – 1850
Married: 1830: Bovey Tracey, Devon
Children by Mary Mugford:
John Pinsent: 1831 – 1908 (Married Frances Elizabeth Bennett, Plymouth, Devon, 1852)
Sarah Jane Pinsent: 1832 – 1916
Mary Ann Pinsent: 1834 – 1850
Thomas Pinsent: 1835 – 1884 (Married Elizabeth Ann West, Plymouth Devon, 1882)
William Pinsent: 1837 – xxxx
Samuel Pinsent: 1839 – 1912 (Married Sarah Jane West, Plymouth Devon).
Family Branch: Bovey Tracey
PinsentID: GRO0840
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Thomas Pinsent was the “base child” that Jane Pinsent had baptized in Bovey Tracey in February 1806. Thus, he was an illegitimate grandson of Thomas Pinsent and Jane Glanville. The “BOVEY TRACEY” Branch continues on through this Thomas – with the interesting twist that Pinsent family “Y” Chromosome DNA has switched from the paternal to the maternal line.
Thomas grew up in Bovey Tracey and married Mary Mugford “by banns” in September 1830. Thomas signed the register – indicating that he had had some education; however, Mary only made her “mark” (Devon Banns and Marriages: Findmypast). In the years that followed, Thomas and Mary had six children. We know of the first four from the parish register; however, the other two were born after the Central Government started collecting vital statistics and their births are also recorded in the Central Government files. The latter show that Thomas was a “farm labourer”. He died a few days after his youngest son, Samuel Pinsent, was born in 1839.
Mary Pinsent (née Mugford) had had six children. However, her eldest son, John Pinsent, was living with a local farmer, James Cox, at Higher Combe Farm when the Census was taken in 1841; so he was no longer at home. He had already been apprenticed. Mary and her other five children, meanwhile, were living on the Northwest side of Main Street in Bovey Tracey.
Mary never remarried. However, she seems to have had a common-law relationship with Samuel Tapper and they had an illegitimate son, George Pinsent in 1844. She had another, Francis Pinsent, three years later but he died the same year. Mary was pregnant again in 1850. However, she died of “consumption” (probably tuberculosis) during “labour” before the child was born and it died with her.
When Mary died, her three younger (legitimate) children Mary Ann, William and Samuel Pinsent, and her illegitimate son by George Tapper (George Pinsent) were sent to the “Union Workhouse” in Newton Abbot and one of them, Mary Ann Pinsent died there a few days later. She had probably also been suffering from tuberculosis. I do not know what happened to her sister, Sarah Jane Pinsent. She probably died young. William, Samuel Pinsent and their half-brother George Pinsent were still in the Workhouse when the census-takers made their rounds in 1851.
Although Mary’s eldest son John Pinsent had been apprenticed to a local farmer in 1841, he was lodging with a Mr. Webber and his family and working in one of the potteries when the Census takers next made their rounds in 1851. He was twenty years old by then. His brother Thomas was a sixteen-years old “agricultural labourer” working for a Mr. and Mrs. Palmer at Higher Woolley Farm in Bovey Tracey that year – they both avoided that fate of living in the Workhouse.
John Pinsent married the following year (1852). His life, and that of his youngest brother Samuel Pinsent – who became an “upholsterer” in Plymouth – are discussed elsewhere. The lives of John’s brothers, Thomas, William and George are discussed below as they left no descendants.
It is worth noting that there was another John Pinsent living in Bovey Tracey in the early 1850s. He had married a local girl, Elizabeth Loveys, and had several daughters employed in the potteries who were not alone in having illegitimate children. The problem seems to have arisen from the rapid industrialization of what had originally been a quiet rural town. The local vicar and three nuns established the “Devon House of Mercy” for “fallen women” in Bovey Tracey in around 1861. It endeavored to see newly arrived girls through their confinement and prepare them for domestic work. The local women, of course, stayed with their families.
Family Tree
GRANDPARENTS
Grandfather: Thomas Pinsent 1738 – 1818
Grandmother: Jane Glanville 1757 – 1827
PARENTS
Father: N/A
Mother: Jane Pinsent: 1791 – 1831
MOTHER’S SIBLINGS (AUNTS, UNCLES)
Thomas Pinsent: 1773 – 1799
Unknown Pinsent: 1782 – xxxx
Mary Pinsent: 1784 – xxxx
William Pinsent: 1786 – xxxx
Jane Pinsent: 1788 – xxxx
Samuel Pinsent: 1793 – 1798
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