Vital Statistics
Joseph Pinson: 1819 – 1881 GRO0538 (Labourer, Ilsington, Devon and Quarryman, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia)
Elizabeth Snell: 1824 – 1880
Marriage: 1843: Ilsington, Devon
Children by Elizabeth Snell:
William Pinson: 1845 – 1845
William James Pinson: 1846 – 1899
Richard Thomas Pinson: 1850 – 1913 (Married Mary Agnes McClune, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia 1867)
Louisa Pinson: 1851 – 1904 (Married William James Crewes, Pyrmont, New South Wales, 1873)
Sarah Pinson: 1853 – xxxx (Married William Franklin, Sydney, New South Wales, 1873)
John Pinson: 1855 – 1919 (Married Ellen Robinson, Sydney, New South Wales, 1876)
Frederick Arthur Pinson: 1857 – 1914 (Married Elizabeth Macken, Paddington, New South Wales, 1878)
Andrew C. Pinson: 1859 – 1862
Ann A. Pinson: 1861 – 1862
Hannah Amelia Pinson: 1863 – xxxx (Married Ebenezer Earl, Sydney, New South Wales, 1886)
Henry Charles A. Pinson: 1865 – 1868
Family Branch: Bristol
PinsentID: GRO0538
Click here to view close family members.
Joseph Pinsent (“Pinson”) was the second eldest surviving son of John Pinsent by his wife, Mary (née Follett). He was born in Ilsington parish and brought up there with three brothers who reached maturity (William Pinsent, John Pinsent and James Pinsent) and with three sisters (Anne, Elizabeth and Sarah Pinsent).
Joseph was apprenticed to Joseph Mann, a local farmer when he was ten years old – in 1829 (Apprenticeship Records: Devon Records Office); however he had moved on from there and when the census was taken in 1841 he was one of six “servants” working for a “lime burner” in Bickington Parish. He does not appear to have stayed there very long as we find that by 1843 Joseph “Pinson” (he had formally reverted to the old spelling of the family name preferred by his grandfather) had moved to Redruth, in Cornwall to work in one of the tin mines. He married Elizabeth Snell, of Redruth, in Ilsington in November 1843. The couple had a short-lived son, William, the following year and longer-lived boy, William James, in 1846. He was baptized in Ilsington. A third son, Richard Thomas arrived in 1850.
Joseph Pinson took his family out to New South Wales in Australia under its “Assisted Passenger Programme” later that year. They arrived in Sydney on the “S.S. Emily” on 9th September 1850. Joseph’s entry documents show that he was a “miner” and that his wife, Elizabeth, was a “house servant.” They could both read and write. The records confirm that their three sons were born in Redruth but baptized in Ilsington. The couple had no immediate relations in New South Wales; however, Elizabeth’s mother was said to be living in Adelaide in South Australia (New South Wales “Assisted Passenger List: 1828 – 1896”). Perhaps they chose to stay in New South Wales as they had been offered assisted passage.
Joseph and Elizabeth settled in “Pyrmont” which is now an inner-city suburb of Sydney. They had a further eight children in Sydney and ended up with seven sons and four daughters! Three of the boys (an early William, Andrew and Henry) and one of the girls (Ann) died young but the others not only survived but married. It was a small community back then so they must have made quite a contribution to the local gene pool. The lives of three of the sons, (Richard Thomas, John and Frederick Arthur Pinson) are described elsewhere.
The Pinsons lived by the shore on Harris Street, near to what is now the fish market in Sydney. Presumably they had access to the water as the captain of a schooner who picked up a drifting rowboat asked Joseph to look after it and advertise for the owner to come forward and claim it. The rowboat was painted pink inside and green outside. It sounds hideous (Sydney Morning Herald: Tuesday 11th September 1860). Presumably, the owner came forward.
Perhaps predictably in a house full of boys, at least one acted up. On the 28th April 1864, the Sydney Morning Herald ran the following announcement: “I hereby caution the public not to harbour nor give credit to my son, Richard Pinson, after this date: April 27th, 1864: Joseph Pinson”. If that was not enough, on the 29th January 1867, the same newspaper carried the following: “To Clergymen: I hereby caution them against marrying my son, Richard Thomas Pinson, as he is under eighteen years of age: Joseph Pinson.” Despite his father’s disapproval, Richard married Mary Agnes McClune later that year! Their story is told elsewhere. Joseph and Elizabeth’s sons John and Frederick also married and their stories too can also be found elsewhere.
Joseph’s eldest surviving son, William James Pinson was born Redruth (in Cornwall) in 1846 and was four years old when the family arrived in Australia. He married Ellen Murphy in Sydney in 1869. However, they had no children that I am aware of, and his life is summarized below. William James was politically active and was one of several electors in West Sydney who published a letter encouraging a Mr. John Booth to run for a seat in the “Colonial Legislature” (Empire: Wednesday 14th February 1972) He also signed a letter urging Robert Fowler to run as “alderman” in Denison Ward, Sydney, in November 1974 (Sydney Morning Herald: Tuesday 24th November 1974). The following month he joined a committee in support of Mr. G. R. Dibbs who was running for the seat in his home district of “Pyrmont” (Sydney Morning Herald: Monday 14th December, 1874). William was not alone in this; father Joseph and brother Richard also threw their support behind Mr. Fowler. What policies they had in common, I do not know.
I am not sure that William was particularly successful in making his living as a young man as a “William Pinson” filed for bankruptcy in the Insolvency Court in 1878. It was probably him. The creditors met before the “Chief Commissioner” in February 1878 (Sydney Morning Herald: Tuesday 19th February 1878). Later, when composing his will in 1892, William mentions that he was an “engine driver”. By that he may have meant that he ran a stationary engine in a factory rather than a train. In the absence of children, he left his estate to his wife Ellen (née Murphy).
It is worth noting that there were other, seemingly unrelated “Pinsons” in New South Wales at around the same time. Whether they came from elsewhere in Devon or from the Midlands or the North of England, I am not sure. In 1886, there was an accident at a coalmine in Stockton, near Newcastle that caused a considerable stir in the community, although in truth accidents were (sadly) all too frequent. For some reason this one caught the public eye. In this case a cart ran over and amputated a hand and several of the fingers belonging to a worker named “William Pinson” and the “State Governor”, Lord Carrington and his wife heard about it. They proposed an appeal on Mr. Pinson’s behalf (Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate: Friday 12th February 1886). The cause was taken up in earnest and a substantial sum was raised by private donation and from entertainments (including a circus performance) and other charitable events. The collection morphed into the “Charles Pinson Fund” after the Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners Advocate (Wednesday 17th February) explained what must have been an earlier mistake … “Intending contributors are reminded that Mr. Pinson’s Christian name is “Charles,” a misunderstanding having arisen in this respect, which has led to some little confusion in the public mind.” Yes, indeed. In March 1886, the fund managers had to decide what to do with the money. The decided to build a small house on a piece of land donated by the mining company (Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate: Thursday 25th March 1886) and invest the surplus to provide income for Mr. and Mrs. Pinson. I have no evidence that Charles Pinson was in anyway related to Joseph, or to this branch of the family. He probably was not.
William James Pinson lost his mother when she died in 1880 and his father when he died the following year. They died in “Pyrmont” and, on both occasions, William and his brothers Richard, John and Frederick and their married sisters Louisa, Sarah and Hannah placed notices in the Sydney Morning Herald notifying their friends of the funeral arrangements and formally invited them to attend (Sydney Morning Herald: Tuesday 27th April 1880 and Sydney Morning Herald, Tuesday 30th August 1881) respectively. Their overlapping notifications conform to the then common practice of putting notices in the “press” and they can be found for other members of the family, as and when they died. They are extremely useful in helping tie families together.
Joseph’s eldest daughter, Louisa, married William James Crewes, a “boiler maker” whose family had also come from Cornwall. They married in St. Silas’s Church, in Waterloo, Sydney in 1873 (Sydney Morning Herald: Saturday 8th March 1873). His next youngest daughter, Sarah, married William Franklin in 1873 and the youngest, Hannah, married Ebenezer Earl – the son of the “late Captain Earl of Greenock, Scotland” in a Wesleyan, Methodist wedding in 1886 (Sydney Morning Herald: Monday 11th October 1886). Ebenezer must have died relatively young as Hannah seems to have married William Langton, of Auckland, New Zealand in 1914 (Sydney Morning News: Saturday 18th July 1914).
The brothers and sisters dutifully notify friends of the pending funerals of many of their extended family. For instance, when William James Pinson died in 1899, his wife Ellen and his brothers and sisters and their spouses duly notified their friends of the funeral arrangements through the agency of the Sydney Morning Herald (Tuesday 19th September 1899). The Court granted his widow probate of William James’s will in October 1899 (Australian Star: Saturday 28th October, 1899). He was fifty-three years old when he died. Ellen, who lived in “Marrickville” in Sydney put a memorial notice in the paper the following year (Sydney Morning Herald: Tuesday 18th September 1900). What happened to her, I am not sure.
Joseph had been a “miner” in Redruth his youth but he turned to quarrying when he arrived in New South Wales. The New South Wales Directory for 1867 describes him as being a “quarryman”. What his position at the quarry was is not known but as he wrote a will (with a codicil) that was processed by the “Supreme Court of New South Wales” in September 1881 (Sydney Morning Herald: Tuesday 6th September 1881) he must have had some standing in the community.
Family Tree
GRANDPARENTS
Grandfather: Richard Pinson: 1745 – 1825
Grandmother: Elizabeth Gregory: 1748 – 1837
PARENTS
Father: John Pinsent: 1782 – 1849
Mother: Mary Follett: 1782 – 1859
FATHER’S SIBLINGS (AUNTS, UNCLES)
Thomas Pinson: 1776 – xxxx
Richard Pinson: 1778 – 1868
Elizabeth Pinson: 1780 – xxxx
William Pinson: 1784 – xxxx
Mary Pinson: 1786 – 1873
Joseph Pinson: 1788 – xxxx
Abraham Pinson: 1787 – 1871
Rachael Pinson: 1796 – xxxx
Loyalty Pinson: 1799 – xxxx
MALE SIBLINGS (BROTHERS)
William Pinsent: 1811 – 1879
John Pinsent: 1817 – 1819
John Pinsent: 1823 – 1902
James Pinsent: 1825 – 1886
Samuel Pinson: 1828 – 1833
Thomas Pinson: 1830 – 1832
Please use the above links to explore this branch of the family tree. The default “Next” and “Previous” links below may lead to other unrelated branches.