Vital Statistics
William Henry John Pinsent: 1841 – 1923 GRO0906 (Coachman and Gardener, Bristol, Gloucestershire)
Louisa Broad: 1837 – 1926
Married: 1864: Bristol, Gloucestershire
Children by Louisa Broad:
William Henry Thiery Pinsent: 1865 – 1915 (Married Hannah Ann Cox, 1889, Bath, Somersetshire)
Louisa Pinsent: 1867 – 1936
Edwin John Pinsent: 1868 – 1949 (Married Emily Mary Vowles, 1895, Bristol, Gloucestershire; Clara Clarke, 1919, Bristol, Gloucestershire)
George Pinsent: 1870 – 1890
Alfred James Pinsent: 1872 – 1873
Emilie Marie Eugenie Pinsent: 1873 – 1959
Josephine Pinsent: 1876 – 1952
Lana Florence Mary Pinsent: 1878 – 1879
Alfred Louie Pinsent: 1880 – 1944 (Married Rosalie Nobel Sage, 1912, Bristol, Gloucestershire)
Beatrice Rose Pinsent: 1882 – 1959 (Married Victor William Anderson, 1906, Bristol, Gloucestershire)
Sidney Pinsent: 1883 – 1947
Family Branch: Bristol
PinsentID: GRO0906
References
Click here to view close family members.
William Henry John Pinsent was the eldest son of William Pinsent by his (likely) second wife, Harriet (née Morgan). He was born in Chew Magna in Somerset in 1841 but grew up in his father’s home parish of Ilsington in Devon. He had a younger brother Sidney Pinsent who was born five years later and a sister Laura Emily Pinsent who arrived in 1852. The two other children from the marriage (Emily and Alfred James Pinsent) died young.
Harriet moved down to Devon with her family in the early 1840s but stayed in touch with a brother, John Morgan, who still lived near their family home in Dursley. The Pinsent family was living at “Trumpeter Cottage” (just to the north of Ilsington village on the road from Bovey Tracey to Widdecombe) by the time the census takers made their rounds in 1841. They reported that William was a “farm labourer;” however when they returned ten years later they discovered that he was a (probably alluvial) “tin miner”. William’s children had moved out by the time of their next visit, in 1861. William Henry John was 20-year old “coachman” employed by Ann Elizabeth Grant, a “fund-holder” from the West Indies. She lived with a large household near Churchill in Somerset. Her money probably came from the ownership and control of sugar plantations. Sidney and Laura Emily, meanwhile, were living with their uncle, John Morgan, the “toll collector” at the “New Turnpike Gate” at Winscombe, in Somersetshire.
William Henry John Pinsent married Louisa Broad, the daughter of a “mason” (John Thiery Broad) in St. Paul’s Parish Church in Bristol in 1864. By then, he was a “gardener” as well as a “coachman.” The register has his name down as “Henry Pinsent;” which is probably the name he usually went by. “Henry” and Louisa moved to #7 Woodbury Place in Westbury on Trym (Clifton, Bristol). “Henry” likely served as a “coachman” and a “gardener” into the early 1880s when he seems to have become a full-time “gardener”. When he died, he was said to have been “formerly a jobbing gardener”.
“Henry” and Louisa had eleven children (six boys and five girls) over the next twenty years and only lost one of each (Alfred James Pinsent and Lana Florence Mary Pinsent) to ill-health in childhood. This is a testament to their personal lifestyle and to the better living conditions found in Westbury on Trym (a suburb of Bristol) than, say, London – or most other major cities for that matter. “Henry’s” forebears had been Methodists and it is interesting to note that five of his children (Louisa, John Edwin, George, Emilie, and Josephine Pinsent) were baptized in St. John the Evangelist Parish Church in Clifton on 25th August 1876. Louisa was nine but Josephine only a few months old. The children that followed were also baptized at St. John, the Evangelist Parish Church as and when they arrived. Nevertheless, the family seems to have retained some of its Methodist leanings and the influence can be seen in the next generation. It is worth noting that the name “Thiery” introduced into the family (William Henry Thiery Pinsent) at this point seems to have been spelt as shown and not as “Thierry,” – according to the current French fashion.
The whole family was active in the “Redland and Kingsdown Workmen’s Flower Show and Home Encouragement Society” in the 1880s and 1890s and “Henry” was a “steward” in 1882 (Bristol Mercury: Saturday 1st April 1882). The competitions were: “open to all members of the society, the entrance fee being only 2d; comprising bona fide workingmen (labourers or mechanics, not master men) and women, living at Redlands, Durdham-down and Kingsdown”. The aim of the show was to improve the quality of life of its members.
The Pinsent family had considerable success over the years and the small cash prizes they won usually covered their entrance fees! In 1879, Mrs. Pinsent (Louisa) won 10s 6d in the “clean and neatly arranged home” category for their family home in Woodbury Lane (Western Daily Press: Friday 7th March 1879). That year, she also won for her “pair of window grown hyacinths” (The Bristol Mail and Daily Post: Saturday 8th March 1879). Louisa and her husband usually did well at the summer events as well. The Western Daily Press (Thursday 31st July 1879) shows that in the window grown “best three plants” category (open to gardeners and gardeners’ wives only), “Henry” Pinsent won and Mrs. Pinsent was awarded an extra prize. “Henry” also came second for his novel window box filled with plants in bloom and on the domestic side Louisa came third for her blanc-mange and second for her pint of lemonade. Louisa Pinsent won in the best window-grown geranium category and E. Pinsent (her son Edwin John, aged 11 years) was granted an extra prize in the same category.
In 1882, George produced the best hyacinth produced by a gardener’s child and his sister Louisa, doubtless to her chagrin, came in second. Edwin won a perhaps more prestigious prize that was given to the “boy or girl who shall best give the teachings of Scripture, both in precept and example, as to the evils of intemperance.” Their mother, Louisa came second in another category with her selection of dried grasses. This was to become her specialty over the years (Western Daily Press: Monday 3rd April 1882).
It was Thiery’s time to shine the following year. He did well with his potted hyacinth, his fern and his succulents; however his mother once again won out in the dried grass department (Western Daily Press: Friday 9th March 1883). Mrs. Pinsent came first with her collection of dried grasses again in 1884; her husband “H. Pinsent” came second with his novel window box (stipulated to be over two feet long) and their eldest son, (Thiery) came second with his (window grown) myrtle in a pot (Bristol Times and Mirror: Friday 7th March 1884). In each case, the prizes amounted to a few shillings and/or a few pence.
For the younger children, there were prizes for schoolwork and in 1884 Josephine won 1s 6d for her Holland pinafore made by a girl aged between eight and nine, and her sister Eugenie won 3s by coming first with her Holland pinafore made by a girl under eleven. Eugenie picked up another award (and 4s) for coming in second with her answers to six questions on Scripture (Western Daily Press: Friday 7th March 1884). The following year Thiery came second for his pot grown fern but may have felt better after winning the society’s prize for the best pair of succulent plants. His mother meanwhile came third with her dried grasses (Bristol Mercury: Friday 6th March 1885). Given “Henry’s” profession; perhaps we should not be too surprised that the family did well on the horticultural side.
When it came to the domestic competitions Mrs. Pinsent came third for her plate of oatmeal porridge (Bristol Mercury: Friday 9th March 1888) but her children were notably absent from the podium that year. They were growing up and education and paid work may well have intervened. Children tended to be sent out work or to apprenticeships when they reached the age of thirteen or fourteen. For his part, “Henry’s” eldest son, William Henry Thiery Pinsent, was staying with his uncle, Samuel Lambshead, a “baker” in Chudleigh when the 1881 census was taken. He was under the watchful eye of his aunt Laura Emily (née Pinsent) and grandmother Harriet Pinsent, (née Morgan). He may have been there to see what he thought about the bakery business as he seems to have been apprenticed to a “baker” in the 1880s. This was probably in Bristol – otherwise it is hard to see how he could have competed in the “Redland and Kingsdown Workmen’s Flower Shows” on a regular basis.
A few years later, he was looking for a “situation as second-hand baker, or confectioner” (Western Daily Press: Monday 4th June 1888). William Henry Thiery married the following year, and he was living with his bride and their newborn child (daughter named Daisy Louise Pinsent) at Box, near Chippenham in Wiltshire when the next census was taken, in 1891. His sister, Beatrice “Rose” was with him – presumably helping out with the baby. William’s life is described elsewhere.
William Henry Thiery’s next youngest brother Edwin John was still competing at the “Redland Flower Show” in 1891. He came third for his window grown potted hyacinth and for his similarly window-grown tulips that year; while his mother was rewarded for her window-grown foliage plants. Edwin was a “cellar-man” living with his family when he married Emily Mary Vowles, the daughter of a “farm labour” at Trinity Chapel, in Barton Regis, in Gloucestershire, in April 1895. He was to have two productive families (six children apiece) over roughly thirty years! His life is also described elsewhere.
“Henry” and Louisa’s third son George Pinsent, meanwhile, moved to Holdenhurst near Bournemouth in Dorset and was a “grocer’s porter” before he, sadly, died unmarried, in 1890. The census records tell us that their daughter Emilie Marie Eugenie Pinsent had moved out of the family home by 1891 but she had not gone far. She was a “general servant” working for the “County Court Clerk” – who also happened to live in Westbury on Trym. He would have been a close neighbour. Josephine Pinsent had also moved out by then. She was working as a “general servant” for a local “ironmonger.” That still left “Henry” and Louisa with three children, Edwin John, Alfred Louie and Sidney Pinsent living at home in the early 1890s.
Edwin’s younger brother Alfred Louie Pinsent married Rosalie Noble Sage, the daughter of a deceased “carriage painter” at the “Medland Congregational Church” in Bristol in December 1912. They had just one daughter. Rosalie may have been a Methodist. Edwin and his siblings came from a family with non-conformist connections but they were (as previously noted) baptized into the Church of England. Alfred’s life is also described elsewhere.
When it comes to “Henry’s” daughters, all but Lana Florence Mary Pinsent, who died in infancy, lived to maturity. Beatrice Rose, his youngest, attended a lecture entitled “The Home We Live In” at the “Redland Workers’ Show” in 1900 and afterwards wrote an essay on home life that came second in one of the show’s many competitions. That was the year that her mother beat all-comers with her “boiled potatoes” (Bristol Mercury Friday 16th March 1900). I digress. According to the Census takers, Beatrice “Rose” was a “shop assistant” living at home in 1901. She married Victor William Anderson, a “solicitor’s clerk” at “Redland Park Congregational Church” in Bristol in December 1906 and left home. Her husband was a “warehouse clerk” employed by “Bristol Docks Committee” in 1921. The family lived at Hut 58, in Shirehampton, in Bristol. The census records tell us that he and his wife, Beatrice Rose, had a young son, and that Rose’s mother Louise was living with them. She was 84 years old.
Beatrice “Rose’s” sister Josephine was, according to the census records, “in service” with an “ironmonger” in 1891; however, she was a “milliner” working out of her father’s home in Woodbury Lane, Westbury on Trym ten years later. She moved out sometime after that. Josephine may have married Arthur Ernest Harvey, a “yeast merchant”; however, I can find no record of the marriage, and a declaration signed by two of her nephews – (“Rose’s” sons) – attached to her death certificate in 1952 suggests that she never did! They requested that the phrase “widow of Arthur Ernest Harvey, yeast merchant” be changed to read “spinster of no occupation”. Josephine was probably had a common-law relationship with Arthur. Her “Calendar of Grants of Probate and letters of Administration” entry supports this stating: “Pinsent or Harvey, Josephine … of Cotham, Bristol, Spinster, died 10th November 1952.” There would have been legal ramifications. Probate was granted to one of the nephews, Ronald Thiery Anderson.
Two of Beatrice’s other sisters – Louisa and Emilie Marie Eugenie Pinsent remained single. “Henry’s” eldest daughter, Louisa, was visiting her soon-to-be “aunt”, Anna Clark in Wolborough at the time of the 1871 census. Otherwise, she seems to have stayed at home with her parents in Woodbury Lane. Later census records show that she was a “scholar” in 1881 and a home-based “washer and laundress” in 1901. As time went by, she stopped growing plants and took up cooking and came second for her “half pint of beef tea” and for her “potatoes in their skins” at the Redland show in 1895. Her brothers, Sidney and Alfred did well in the bulb-growing department that year (Western Daily Press: Friday 15th March 1895). Louisa competed well in her chosen categories the following year. In this case, her “beef tea” came in second – just ahead of “Mrs. Edwin Pinsent” (Bristol Mercury: Friday 20th March 1896). Louisa’s brother Edwin had married and left home the previous summer. He introduced some sibling rivalry into the family! Louisa was still living at home in 1911 and “Miss L. Pinsent” submitted a “potted aspidistra (variegated)” that came third at the “Redland Flower Show” in 1914 (Western Daily Press: Friday 20th March 1914). Aspidistras were very much in fashion in those days.
According to the census data, William Henry John Pinsent was still working as a gardener on his own account in 1921; however, he was nearly eighty years old at the time and retired. His wife, Louisa, was visiting one of their daughters and away from home, but he shared the house with three of his unmarried children; his son, Sidney, who was a “gardener” employed by a “Mr. Scree” on Whiteladies Road, his daughters Louisa, who was a “laundress” who worked from home and Eugenie, who took care of the household duties. The household also included a young married couple, Herbert and Josephine Nicholls, who were said to be “boarders.” Herbert was a “general labourer” with a local contractor “W. Wilcox and Co.”.
Interestingly, there was said to be a third “boarder,” a Pauline Rose Pinsent, aged eighteen years, who was said to be “Henry’s” sister-in-law. In fact, she was his granddaughter – his son Edwin John’s daughter! She was a “sugar confectionary baker” working for “Fry’s and Sons, Chocolate Manufacturers” of Union Street in Bristol. Sidney, Louisa and their sister Emilie stayed on in Woodbury Lane after their parents (William Henry John Pinsent and Louisa née Broad) died there in 1923 and 1926 respectively. Louisa died there in 1936 but Emilie and Sidney stayed on and were living there when the England and Wales Register was compiled in 1939.
The house itself, No. 3 Woodbury Lane on Black Boy Hill, had been in the family since the 1840s and had, at one point, been sold with them as sitting tenants. The freehold of No’s. 3 and 4 Woodbury Lane “with gardens in front respectively occupied by Messrs. Pinsent and Mainstone, as weekly tenants, at rentals amounting together to £31 4s 0d per annum” was one of several lots sold by auction at the “King’s Arms” on Black Boy Hill on 12th April 1893 (Western Press: Wednesday 12th April 1893). According to the 1911 census, it was a six-room house – as it would need to have been with eleven children running around! It remained in the family until Sidney died in 1947.
The 1901 Census show that Sidney was living at home while apprenticed a local “baker” and “confectioner”; so he probably planned to become a “baker” – like his elder brother, William Henry Thiery Pinsent. However, that idea seems to have fallen through as the next census, taken in 1911, shows that he was a “domestic under gardener” living with his family on Woodbury Lane.
Sidney Pinsent was a thirty-four years old, single, (Methodist) “gardener” when he signed on for active service on 7th February 1916. He was assigned to the “Labour Corps” as a Private [Regimental #242175] and was added to the roll of “438 Agricultural Company” on 1st November 1916. He appears to have served in the London area. He was discharged, in Surbiton, in Surrey, as “no longer physically fit” (chronic bronchitis and asthma) on 14th March 1919. Perhaps he had caught the “Spanish Flu”, which was causing so much havoc that year. He was stated to be “of good character” and eligible for the “Silver Badge”.
Sidney applied for a disability pension but his condition was not judged to be due to military service and it was reduced to 30%. He never married. Presumably, he reverted to being a “gardener”, in so far as his health allowed. He was described as being a “general labourer” when the England and Wales war-time Register was compiled in 1939. By then, Sidney would have been 56 years old. He lived with his sister, Emilie in Woodbury Lane and he died there in January 1947. She died in Weston Super Mare in Somerset in 1959.
Family Tree
GRANDPARENTS
Grandfather: John Pinsent: 1782 – 1849
Grandmother: Mary Follett: 1782 – 1859
PARENTS
Father: William Pinsent: 1811 – 1879
Mother: Harriet Morgan: 1813 – 1890
FATHER’S SIBLINGS (AUNTS, UNCLES)
Ann Pinson: 1809 – 1862
Elizabeth Pinson: 1814 – xxxx
John Pinsent: 1817 – 1819
Joseph Pinson: 1819 – 1881
Sarah Pinson: 1821 – 1886
John Pinsent: 1823 – 1902
James Pinsent: 1825 – 1886
Samuel Pinson: 1828 – 1833
Thomas Pinson: 1830 – 1832
MALE SIBLINGS (BROTHERS, half-brothers)
William Henry John Pinsent: 1841 – 1923
Sidney Pinsent: 1846 – 1880
Alfred James Pinsent: 1847 – 1848
Thomas James Pinsent: 1833 – 1915
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.