Vital Statistics
Leonard Albert Walter: 1916 – 1995 GRO0576 (Police Detective Sergeant, London, Middlesex)
1. Theressa Nazer Warren: 1915 – xxxx
Marriage: 1939: London, Middlesex
Children by Theressa Nazer Warren:
Daughter (GRO0476)
2. Enid Taylor: 1930 – 1997
Marriage: 1955: Westminster, Middlesex
Children by Enid Taylor:
Son (GRO0771)
Son (GRO0480)
Family Branch: Tiverton
PinsentID: GRO0576
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Leonard Albert Walter Pinsent was the second son of William George James Pinsent by his wife, Maud Eleanor Spall. His father was a “wholesale spice merchant” who founded and initially ran the firm of “W. G. Pinsent Ltd.” of 2 St. John’s Lane, Clerkenwell, in London. Leonard had two brothers, (William Thomas James and Ronald Bertram Horace Pinsent) and a younger sister (Joyce Elizabeth Rose Pinsent). They were brought up on Osidge Lane in Southgate (in north London).
Leonard joined the “Metropolitan Police Force” and was living in the Police Section House in Catherine Grove, Greenwich, in 1939 (London, England Electoral Registers: 1847-1965). However, he finished his training and was a qualified “Police Officer” living at Winchmore Hill in Enfield when he married Theresa Nazer Warren, the daughter of a “banker,” in December that year.
Leonard joined the Royal Air Force (#150308) in 1942 and was part of a contingent of young officers that sailed for New York from Gourlock in Scotland on the “U.S.A.T. Thomas H. Barry” that August (New York Passenger Lists: 1820-1957: Ancestry.com). On the completion of his training, he returned and he was a “Leading Aircraftsman” in April 1943. Where he was assigned, I am not sure; however, he was advanced to “Pilot Officer” (on probation) and to “Flight Officer” (on probation) in October that year. He became a “Flight Lieutenant” in April 1945 (London Gazette: 12th August 1943; and 1st May 1945).
Leonard Albert Walter Pinsent survived the war (unlike his younger brother Ronald Bertram Horace Pinsent who had similarly married and joined the Royal Air Force early in the war. Bertram had also been sent out to America for training; but died in a mid-air collision during a night-flight exercise over Florida and Georgia in July 1942. This occurred only a matter of weeks before Leonard sailed to the United States for his own flight training).
On returning to civilian life, Leonard re-joined the “Metropolitan Police Force” and started a family. He was living in Tintern Gardens in Wood Green (north London) when his daughter Janice Nazer Pinsent was born in 1948. The family moved to Broomfield Lane in Southgate in 1952 (London, England, Electoral Registers: Ancestry.com) but it was not there long before Leonard’s marriage to Theressa came to an end and the following year Leonard was back living with his father and stepmother (William George James Pinsent and Elizabeth, née Thornley, on Osidge Lane. From there, he moved in with his aunt Marguerite (née Pinsent) and her husband, George William Carey. They lived on Woodlands Road in Edmonton. He stayed with them until at least 1955.
Leonard and Theressa’s marriage was formally dissolved and both remarried in 1955. By then, Leonard was a “police sergeant” living at Trenchard House in Broadwick Street in Central London. He married a “hairdresser” named Enid Taylor. His ex-wife, Theresa, meanwhile, married Kenneth Ernest Wright, a “printer’s process engraver”. The latter may have emigrated to America as Theressa and her daughter Janice Pinsent are mentioned on the manifest of a “Pan American” flight to New York in April 1957. Janice was around ten years old (New York Passenger and Crew Lists: 1820-1957: Ancestry.com).
Leonard and Enid (née Taylor), settled on Bedford Road in Wanstead (London, England, Electoral Registers 1832-1965) and had two sons, one in the late 1950s and another in the early 1960s. They have both since married and had sons of their own – so Leonard’s family line seems secure.
Leonard became a “Detective Sergeant” and a noted Scotland Yard “finger-print expert”. His expertise was instrumental in solving numerous criminal cases. For example in 1952 he gave evidence in the trial of John Shannon and John Currie (“of no fixed abode”) who were accused of breaking and entering in Marlborough Hill, St. John’s Wood and stealing clothes and other property valued at £40. On that occasion, he was able to show that pieces of glass found at the scene of the crime had been marked by Currie’s right forefinger (Marylebone Mercury: Friday 29th February 1952).
Similarly it was, Leonard’s recognition of a thumbprint on a silver plate stolen by Sidney George Jones in 1955 that led him to not only confess but take the police on a tour of the houses in Wimbledon, Willesden and Highgate that he had broken into (Uxbridge & West Drayton Gazette: Friday 10th June 1955). Also, that year, he was able to match a thumb mark on part of a radiator stolen from a tank under repair at the “Royal Ordnance Corp” (R.E.M.E) camp at Bordon, near Portsmouth to a George Henry Preston. With others, he was charged with receiving and selling goods that he knew to be stolen. In a second but related case, Private Clive Brooks was charged with stealing radiators from Churchill and Sherman tanks under repair at the camp (Portsmouth Evening News: Tuesday 16th August 1955).
Leonard’s skills were also called upon in 1958 when David Hickman, an unemployed “slater and tiler,” was charged with break-in to the “Royal Navy Association” club in Gosport and stealing over £63, numerous bottles of whisky, rum, gin and sherry, cigarettes and a considerable amount of tobacco (Portsmouth Evening News: Wednesday 9th April 1958).
He was in demand at other times as well. On one occasion, in 1959, after the “Managing Director” of a firm disturbed three burglars attempting to open his safe the miscreant fled and the manager gave chase! Nevertheless, proof of identity was needed and it fell to Leonard to match the villains prints to the get-away-car (Saffron Walden Weekly News: Friday 3rd April 1959). In September 1962 Detective Inspector Leonard Pinsent’s skills were called upon to solve a different sort of mystery. The police needed to identify a sick Polish man who walked into Westminster Hospital and died there of rat-poison (Chelsea News and General Advertiser: Friday 7th & Friday 28th September 1962). Fortunately Scotland Yard has his finger-prints on file.
Leonard retired from the Police in around 1980 and moved to Brighton and Hove in Sussex. Leonard and Enid were living on St. Helen’s Crescent in Hove in 1981 (British Telephone Books: 1880-1894: Ancestry.com). Leonard died there in April 1995 and his estate (valued at £125,000) was probated in Brighton the following month (England and Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations: 1858 – 1995). Enid died in Hove two years later, in (London Gazette: 19th November 1997).
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)
William Thomas James Pinsent: 1914 – 1996
Ronald Bertram Horace Pinsent: 1921 – 1942
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