Vital Statistics
William Pinsent: 1811 – 1879 GRO0890 (Tailor, Plymouth and Exeter, Agricultural Labourer, Ilsington, Devon)
1. Sarah Eales: xxxx – xxxx
Married: 1932: Stoke Damerel, Devon
Children by Sarah Eales:
Thomas James Pinsent: 1833 – 1915 (Married Elizabeth James, 1856, St. Helier, Jersey)
Elizabeth Pinsent: 1836 – xxxx (Married Thomas Potter Rose, 1864, Ballarat, Victoria, Australia)
2. Harriet Morgan: 1813 – 1890
Married: 1840: Dursley (?) Gloucestershire
Children by Harriet Morgan:
William Henry John Pinsent: 1841 – 1923 (Married Louisa Broad, 1864, Bristol, Gloucestershire)
Emily Pinsent: 1843 – 1848
Sidney Pinsent: 1846 – 1880 (Married Anna Clark, 1871, Newton Abbot, Devon)
Alfred James Pinsent: 1847 – 1848
Laura Emily Pinsent: 1852 – 1906 (Married Samuel Lambshead, 1875, Ilsington, Devon)
Family Branch: Bristol
PinsentID: GRO0890
William’s story begins with a second family in the Australia line.
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William Pinsent was the eldest son of John Pinsent (a.k.a. “Pinson”) by his wife, Mary (née Follett). He was born in Ilsington in Devon in 1811 and had three surviving brothers (Joseph Pinsent, John Pinsent and James Pinsent) who married and had children. He also had three sisters (Ann Pinsent, Elizabeth Pinsent and Sarah Pinsent); however, only two of them (Elizabeth and Sarah) married.
William appears to have been apprenticed to John Hayman at the age of ten years (1822) and to Joseph Yeo when he was sixteen years old (1829) (Apprenticeship Records: Ilsington: Devon Records Office). They were local “farmers” and one would have expected him to remain tied to the land; however, he seems to have had other ideas. It looks as if he took off for Plymouth and worked for a “tailor”.
William Pinsent probably married Sarah Eales in Stoke Damerel in June 1832. If it was not him, then I do not know who it was! William and Sarah had a son, Thomas James Pinsent in Plymouth in 1833 and a daughter, Elizabeth Pinsent, baptized in St. David’s Parish in Exeter in 1836.
Thomas James Pinsent was later to marry Elizabeth James in the Channel Islands and emigrate to Australia in 1856. His sister Elizabeth seems to have joined him a few years later as she married Thomas Potter Rose in Ballarat, in Victoria in 1864. William’s son and his grandsons by Thomas James created the AUSTRALIA branch of the Pinsent family. Their line of descent is discussed elsewhere. The family can still be found in and around Melbourne.
William Pinsent remained in Devon but his putative wife Sarah (née Eales) drops out of sight soon after the birth of her second child and the same William Pinsent (?) married Harriet Morgan in 1840. I have yet to see a record of marriage but Harriet came from the village of Dursley, near Bristol and she provides the first definitive tie to the City.
William and Harriet’s first child was born in 1841 and they went on to have five children over eleven years. Two of them died early but there were two productive sons (William Henry John and Sidney Pinsent) and a daughter (Laura Emily Pinsent) who married.
As a boy, William Pinsent had been apprenticed as a “farm labourer.” However (assuming I am right and they are the same man), he seems to have worked for a “tailor” as a young man. If so, he returned to the land after parting company with his first wife (Sarah née Earles). The census records tell us that he was an “agricultural labourer” living with his new wife, Harriet, in Chew Magna, in Somerset in 1841. She must have been pregnant as their first son, William Henry John Pinsent was born there later that summer. They had a short-lived daughter, Emily (where, I am not sure) born in 1843 and then returned to William’s home parish of Ilsington, in Devon. His father, John Pinsent, would have been getting on in age so perhaps he needed his help.
William and Harriet’s sons Sidney Pinsent and Alfred James Pinsent were born in Ilsington and Emily and Alfred James both died there in 1848. They died within days of each other – probably from measles. William and Harriet’s last child, a daughter, Laura Emily was born in 1852. The previous year’s census shows that William was a “farm labourer” and that he lived at “Trumpeter”, in Ilsington.
A decade on (1861), the next one shows that William was a “tin mining labourer” and Harriet was a “shop keeper.” By then, the family was living at “Smokey Houses”, in Ilsington. William’s eldest son (William Henry John Pinsent) was, meanwhile, “in service” near Churchill in Somersetshire. He was a “coach-man” in the household of an affluent female “fund-holder” who had been born in the West Indies. Presumably her father was a sugar baron. William Henry’s life is described elsewhere. William’s younger children (Sidney and Laura Emily) were also living in Somersetshire that year. They were staying with their uncle, John Morgan, who was a “toll collector” at the “New Turnpike Gate” at Winscombe.
A few years previously, Laura Emily had been given a mug that was inscribed “Laura Emily Pinsent, a present from Bovey, 1857”. It had been made at one of the potteries in Bovey Tracey and it is now on display in a small museum called “The House of Marbles”. Laura Emily returned to Devon after living with her uncle. The 1871 Census tells us that she was a “milliner and dressmaker” living with her parents. She married Samuel Lambshead, a local “farmer,” in 1875 and there is a copy of their marriage certificate on display along-side the mug at the “House of Marbles”. Laura’s two brothers Sidney and “Henry” (William Henry John) signed the marriage certificate as witnesses. In fact, it would have been more accurate to call Samuel the “son of a farmer” as he seems to have been a “baker”. They moved to Chudleigh and set up a bakery.
William died in Ilsington in 1879 and his widow, Harriet, went to live with Laura Emily and her husband, and their family in Chudleigh. The census takers found her there, in 1881. She was living on “Fore Street”. Harriet’s eldest son, William Henry John Pinsent was by then long since married and living in Bristol. However, his son William Henry Thiery Pinsent was also living with his uncle and aunt in Chudleigh. Presumably, he was training to be a “baker” as William, or “Thiery” as he was more commonly known went on to become a “baker” in Bath in Somerset. His life is discussed elsewhere. Harriet died in Chudleigh in 1890.
Laura Emily’s brother Sidney became a “clerk” and married Anna Clark, the daughter of “a gentleman” in Wrington in Bristol in 1871. His life is described elsewhere.
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)
John Pinsent: 1817 – 1819
Joseph Pinson: 1819 – 1881
John Pinsent: 1823 – 1902
James Pinsent: 1825 – 1886
Samuel Pinson: 1828 – 1833
Thomas Pinson: 1830 – 1832
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