Vital Statistics
Wallace Frederick Pinsent: 1920 – 2004 GRO0870 (Civil Servant, Greater London and Bournemouth, Dorset)
Audrey Ivy Beckett: 1925 – 2018
Married: 1946: Sompting, Sussex
Children by Audrey Ivy Beckett:
Daughter (GRO0560)
Son (GRO0691)
Daughter (GRO0801)
Daughter (GRO0707)
Family Branch: Bristol
PinsentID: GRO0870
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Wallace Frederick Pinsent was second (surviving) son of Albert John Pinsent by his wife, Hilda Maude Brimblecombe. He was born in Newton Abbot in 1920 and grew up there with an older brother (William Edwin) and three sisters (Harriet, Winifred and Lillian) who married in the 1940s. Wallace’s mother died when his sister Lillian was born and in 1925 and his father, who was a “clay works worker” and an “ex-Sergeant in the Devonshire Regiment” died a few years later, in 1928. What happened to the children after that, I am not sure. However, it is notable that all except the youngest daughter left Devon and headed east.
Wallace served in the “Devonshire Regiment” during the Second World War and saw action with the “Eighth Army” in North Africa and possibly also in Sicily and Italy. However, he was wounded in northern France in October 1943 (Western Morning News: Thursday 14th October 1943). He appears to have convalesced in England as a newspaper report describes how he met his wife-to-be at a party given for wounded soldiers at “Roehampton Hospital” in London during the war. He married Audrey Ivy Beckett in Sompting in Sussex in 1946 (Worthing Herald: Friday 29th March 1946). The report tells us that the bridegroom’s brother “Mr. E. Pinsent” (presumably William Edwin Pinsent) was “best man” and that the happy couple headed off to Newton Abbot after the wedding.
Wallace Frederick went into the “Civil Service” after the War and became a “clerk”. He moved up to London with Ivy and the Electoral Rolls tell us that they were living in a flat on the Millbank Estate in the City of London in 1947. However, they later moved to Lancing, in Sussex, on the south coast. Wallace had lost his left arm in Normandy but managed very well with a prosthetic limb. He lived in Chessington, near London, during the week and commuted to his home to Lancing at weekends during the 1950s. He made the trip on a scouter that he had had modified to enable him to run it safely with his one good hand and his feet (Worthing Herald, Friday 21st March 1958).
Wallace and Audrey had one son and three daughters, all of whom married. His son had at least two sons in his turn, so the line doubtless continues. Wallace went from being a “clerk in the War Office” to being a “messenger for the War Office.” However, by the time his youngest daughter was born, in 1962, he was a “senior paper keeper”. I hate to think what that entailed! When Wallace retired from the “Civil Service” the London Gazette (31st October 1980) announce that: “The QUEEN has been graciously pleased to award the Imperial Service Medal to the following officers on their retirement. Ministry of Defense; Pinsent, Wallace Frederick, Office Keeper 1A.”
The couple lived in a flat on Grove Street in Bournemouth, in Dorset in the early 2000s and ended their days there. Wallace died in April 2004. The U.K. Electoral Registers show that Audrey was living on Grove Street in Bournemouth in 2013. She died there in 2018.
Family Tree
GRANDPARENTS
Grandfather: John Pinsent: 1852 – 1917
Grandmother: Ann Paddon: 1849 – 1922
PARENTS
Father: Albert John Pinsent: 1882 – 1928
Mother: Hilda Maude Brimblecombe: 1891 – 1925
FATHER’S SIBLINGS (AUNTS, UNCLES)
Laura Ann Pinsent: 1874 – 1940
Wallace Pinsent: 1877 – 1955
Ada Pinsent: 1880 – 1959
Albert John Pinsent: 1882 – 1928
Florence Annie Pinsent: 1885 – 1918
Lily Blanche Pinsent: 1887 – 1949
Beatrice May Pinsent: 1894 – 1894
MALE SIBLINGS (BROTHERS)
William Edwin Pinsent: 1912 – 1985
Alfred John Richard Pinsent: 1914 – 1920
Wallace Frederick Pinsent: 1920 – 2004
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