The INDIA branch is enigmatic. The patriarch comes out of nowhere. He appears as a house-builder living near Russell Square in Bloomsbury in London in the early 1800s. Where he came from, I do not know. The 1851 Census Records tells us that he was born in Tiverton around 1769; however, I can find no sign of his birth there. The closest I can find is that of a Henry Pinson who was the son of a “mariner” born in Paignton. If he is the same man, we must have a very late conversion from “Pinson” to “Pinsent”.
For now, I considered Henry to be the founding father of his own INDIA branch. If he came from Paignton and his father was a sailor, it could explain why one of his Henry’s sons, Henry John Pinsent, took to the sea when young. He eventually gained some standing as a “superintendent purser” in the “Pacific and Orient Steam Navigation Company” (P. & O. Co. Ltd.). Henry John had three sons who were either born in India, or at least lived there – hence the branch designation. His eldest and youngest sons, William Henry Pinsent and Frederick Henry Davison Pinsent, followed their father into the “P. & O. Co. Ltd.” but the middle son, Charles Powell Tronson Pinsent started out as an Indigo merchant in Madras. He later became secretary of the “Madras Harbour Board”. All three brothers retired back to England.
Charles’s only son, Harold Charles Frank Pinsent, was a Paymaster Captain in the Royal Navy who was lent to the Canadian Navy during the First World War. His two children were born in Canada. Harold retired in 1934 but then served as Secretary to “Navy Week” in Portsmouth in 1935. He rejoined the Navy and served in an administrative capacity during the Second World War. Meanwhile, his son, Charles Hildige Pinsent joined the Indian Army. Later, after India gained its independence, he too returned to England. The family’s exposure to the sub-continent was relatively short.
The following is a brief summary of the INDIA Branch of the Pinsent family. For a full list of members visit the FAMILY BRANCH page and for more information on selected sons click through and read their biographies.
India
Henry Pinsent (1769 – 1854) was a “carpenter” and “undertaker” who later became a “builder”. He married Joanna Wogan in St. Giles in the Fields in Holborn, London, in 1800 and had several children baptized in St. George’s, parish church in Bloomsbury between 1803 and 1817. According to London’s numerous Commercial Directories, he originally conducted his business out of #22 Little Guildford Street (near Russell Square). However, Land Tax Records show that it was a John Pinsent who owned the premises from 1819 to 1832. This could have been his father; however, it could also have been his elder brother. It is not clear where Henry was between 1832 and 1837 but he had moved to #41 Seymour Street (Euston Square) by 1838. By then, he was approaching 70 years of age.
According to the I851 Census, Henry was born in Tiverton around 1769 but I can find no record of his birth. The nearest match I have come across is for a Henry Pinson, son of John Pinson (1734 – xxxx), a “mariner” and his wife Elizabeth Lang, who was born in Paignton in 1769. Paignton is a coastal town approximately 50 miles south of Tiverton and it is possible the census taker misheard or perhaps was misinformed. If this is our man, he does not come from the main TIVERTON branch of the family (discussed elsewhere), but rather he comes from a “Pinson” branch that must have switched to the name “Pinsent” on moving up to London. There were several “Pinson” and “Penson” families actively involved in coastal shipping in the 18th and 19th Centuries and Henry may belong to one of them. In view of the uncertainly, Henry Pinsent (1769 – 1854) is designated a founding father.
Regardless of Henry’s origins, his descendants happily took to the sea and established a short but multi-generational link to India through their connection to the “Pacific and Orient Steam Navigation Company (P. & O. Co. Ltd.)”. Henry’s last remaining, male, descendant returned to England after India gained its independence in 1947.
Henry and Joanna (née Wogan) clearly came from to a middle class family as the younger of their two currently known sons, George Pinsent (1814 – 1838) was a chorister at St. Paul’s and a “professor of music” when he died – unmarried. His sister Eliza Pinsent went into some form of domestic service and, as a 31 year old, was tricked into a bigamous marriage by a fellow servant who was after the money she had managed to put by. John Blackstone Steedman was tried at the Old Bailey and transported for seven years. Family lore states that her brother Henry John Pinsent (1812 – 1894) ran away to sea as a young man (correspondence between his great granddaughter and my father). Perhaps he had the encouragement of a old sea-dog of a grandfather! While in his early 20s, Henry John was employed by a London merchant as a “supercargo” (the man responsible for the sale of cargo) on the sailing ship “Eliza” when it stopped to trade at Portendic, in modern-day Mauritania on the West coast of Africa. In 1834, the French claimed the exclusive right of trade there and Henry was caught up in what became an international incident. It led to considerable diplomatic, and perhaps not very diplomatic, correspondence (British & Foreign State Papers, Volumes 27 & 30).
Despite this, Henry John went on to join the P. & O. Co. Ltd. as a “clerk” and he rose to the rank of “Superintendent Purser” (comptroller) as the Company grew in size and importance in the late 1800s. The P. & O. serviced the British Empire and ran the mail service to the orient from its home base in Southampton. Towards the end of his career, Henry John was invited on the inaugural voyages of several recently launched P. & O. ocean liners. On land he was an active member of the Conservative party and, in the 1870s, a member of Southampton City Council. He lived in Portswood, which was then a small suburb, and local newspapers tell us that he fought a prolonged fight for the improvement of its drainage – meeting considerable opposition from some of his more affluent neighbours who feared it would lead to an increase in their taxes!
Henry John Pinsent married Charlotte Best Sharpe in 1842 and had three sons and three daughters. Two of the latter made “respectable” marriages and the third died in Southampton in 1948. His eldest son, William Henry Pinsent (1845 – 1895) was born in Calcutta; however, he lived most of his life in England. William Henry followed his father into the P. & O. Co. Ltd. and worked as an administrator in the main office in Southampton. He also dabbled as a volunteer in the local militia. William Henry served with the First Hants (Hampshire) Artillery Volunteers. He married Frances Arabella Baker in 1885 but they had no children that I am aware of.
Henry John’s younger sons, Charles Powell Tronson Pinsent (1849 – 1904) and Frederick Henry Davison Pinsent (1852 – 1902) were both educated at the P. & O. High School in Southampton and then sent out to Madras (Chennai, in Tamil Nadu). Charles went as a merchant and he was involved in a complicated court case concerning payment for a consignment of indigo in his “godown” (warehouse) in 1885 (Indian Law Reports Vol. VIII: Madras). Whatever the outcome- which may have been influenced by his being a high-ranking Freemason, he later became “Secretary” to the Madras Harbour Board. Charles married Harriet Ann Soden in 1879 and had three daughters and a son, Harold Charles Frank Pinsent (1884 – 1968) who we shall hear about shortly.
Charles’s three daughters, Gwendolyn, Frances Maud and Phyllis Charlotte all returned to England and married well. Gwendolyn married a lawyer from Yorkshire, Frances Maud a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy, and Phyllis an acting-Captain in the Royal Field Artillery.
Henry John and Charlotte’s youngest son Frederick Henry Davison Pinsent also became a purser in the P. & O. Co. Ltd. He is credited with being one of the first people to establish a ship–to–shore telephone service at Madras in 1890. He married twice, firstly to Helena Maud Robins, in 1878, and secondly, after her death in India in 1884, to Margaret Ellen Sharpe, in 1900. Frederick had a short-lived son Frederick Henry Joseph Pinsent (1879 – 1879) by his first wife but no surviving children by either of them. While abroad, Charles and Frederick were both active members of “Masons’ Lodge Perfect Unanimity, No. 150” in Madras. Eventually, Charles and Frederick, and Frederick’s second wife, Margaret Ellen, retired back to England to live with their mother Charlotte (née Sharpe) in Kensington. Frederick died in London in 1902 and Charles and his mother Charlotte followed two years later, in 1904. Margaret Ellen remarried the same year.
Harold Charles Frank Pinsent (1884 – 1968) (above) was educated at the Merchant Taylors’ School and Dartmouth Naval Academy. He joined the Royal Navy as an “assistant paymaster” in 1901, and went on to serve on a variety of ships and shore stations. He served on H.M.S. Royal Oak and H.M.S. Renown before the First World War. He was loaned to the Canadians and served in Ottawa with its Naval Service throughout the war; however, he also had a spell on-board H.M.C.S. Niobe towards its close. After the war, he returned to England and served at shore-stations and aboard major warships, such as the H.M.S. Barham and H.M.S. Warspite. Harold Charles Frank retired with the rank of “Paymaster Captain” in 1934 but, like so many others, he rejoined the Navy during the Second World War. He was the “Naval Supply Officer for the Bristol Channel” based in Swansea, Glamorganshire. Harold was an experienced administrator and he was appointed “Secretary to the Navy Week Committee” in Portsmouth while nominally in retirement in 1935. “Navy Week” was a major event in those days. It allowed the Government to show off its fleet. The Navy was still at the heart and soul of the Empire.
Harold married Constance Amy Hildige Johnson in 1912, and they had two children, a son Charles Hildige Pinsent (1914 – 1998) and a daughter Joan Constance Pinsent (1917 – 2003). They were both born in Canada while he was there on secondment. Charles Hildige Pinsent attended Sherborne School and Sandhurst Military College and then joined the Indian Army. He married Ethelwyn Phillipson in Jhansi, India in 1941. Charles served with the 13th Frontier Force Rifles during the Second World War and returned to England after India gained its independence. He went on to manage an up-marked department store in London. I am not aware of any children.
During the war, Charles Hildige’s sister, Joan Constance was a “Second Officer” in the W.R.N.S. (Women’s Royal Naval Service). From correspondence she had with my father, I gather she served with another Joan Pinsent. Presumably this was the “Third Officer” Joan Isobel Pynsent (mentioned previously). To avoid confusion, Joan Isobel seems to have changed her name to “Joanna”. Their meeting is just one of several instances where the family lines have crossed.
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