Vital Statistics
William James Pinson: 1875 – 1945 GRO1892 Bristol (Printer and Compositor, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia)
Florence Isabella Field: 1874 – 1946
Married: 1901: Marrickville, New South Wales, Australia
Children by Florence Isabella Field:
Alma Isabella Mary Pinson: 1903 – 1949 (Married, (1) Reginald A. Jelfs, Marrickville, New South Wales, Australia, 1922; (2) Eric John Dunn Marrickville, New South Wales, Australia, 1943)
Richard Thomas Pinson: 1905 – 1966 (Married Beryl Vernie Wilkinson, Marrickville, New South Wales, Australia, 1931)
Family Branch: Bristol
PinsentID: GRO1892
William James was the second eldest son of Richard Thomas Pinson, by his wife Mary Agnes (née McClune). He was born into a family of seven boys and six girls that were born in Sydney over a span of twenty-five years or so. Two of the girls died young and one of the boys died unmarried; however, all of the others married in the local area. His father was a “butcher”.
William James was born in Balmain (Rozelle). He received a good education and joined the Colonial Treasurer’s Department‘s Government Printing Office as a “compositor” in 1889. He was employed by the State Government for most of his life and was still working for the Department in 1934 (New South Wales, Australia, Public Service Lists: 1858 – 1960: Ancestry.com),
William married Miss Florence Isabella Field in St. Clement’s Church, in Marrickville in August 1901. She was described as being the granddaughter of Mr. William Jarrett of Veneta, Glebe Point – who must have been a gentleman of note in his community (Sydney Evening News: Saturday 5th October 1901). The Electoral Rolls show that Florence was living in Campsie in 1903-1904. William and Florence had their two children (Alma Isabella Mary Pinson and Richard Thomas Pinson) while living in Sydenham, in 1903 and 1905 respectively.
Florence’s sister Blanche died in August 1910 and William and Florence duly notified their relatives and friends of the funeral arrangements through a notice placed in the Sydney Morning Herald (Tuesday 23rd August 1910). They placed another notice when William’s father, Richard Thomas Pinson, died in Canterbury in January 1913 (Sydney Morning Herald: Saturday 11th January 1913). William placed an “In Memoriam” notice in the same paper a year later (Sydney Daily Telegraph: Friday 9th January 1914).
William’s brother Herbert Joseph was the next to die. When he died in August 1917, William and Florence and several other members of the extended family notified their friends of the funeral arrangements through the press (Sydney Morning Herald: Monday 6th August 1917). William was less enthusiastic about submitting notices of memoriam for the departed than many of the other members of the extended family but Mr. and Mrs. William Pinson went on to acknowledge and notify friends about the death of his nephew, Herbert Cecil Pinson in 1928 (Sydney Morning Herald: Tuesday 31st July 1928) and, of course, his own mother, Mary Agnes (née McClune) in July 1930 (Sydney Morning Herald: Thursday 17th July 1930).
The Electoral Rolls show that Mary Agnes Pinson “senior” was living on Queen Street in Ashfield in 1930. She was living with her son, William James, who was a “printer” and her daughter Ruby Mary. There was no sign of Florence. Mary Agnes passed over her two eldest sons and made her third son Richard Alfred her executor. Why she did so, I do not know. However, she divided her estate more or less equally between her many children.
Perhaps William and Florence had temporarily separated as the Electoral Rolls show that Florence and her son, Richard Thomas Pinson (a “warehouseman”) were living on Victoria Road in Marrickville in 1930. William James was, of course, absent. Richard Thomas married the following year and his wife Beryl Vernie (née Wilkinson) moved in with him and with his mother. Beryl was a “dress-maker”. Florence’s daughter Alma Mary Pinson was also with them in the family home in 1933. She had married Reginald Jelfs in 1922; however, he must have died young as she moved back in with her mother sometime in the 1930s. She was a “clerk”.
Richard and Beryl moved out and Florence and Alma had the Victoria Road house to themselves from 1934 onward. Florence lived there for the rest of her life. Her husband William James Pinson lived with Richard and Beryl on Edward Street in Marrickville in the late 1930s. Richard had gone into the family business and by 1943 was yet another “butcher”! His father William James lived alone on Bourke Street, in Redfern for a while; however, he seems to have moved back into the family home on Victoria Road shortly before he died in 1945. According to the Sydney Morning Herald: Thursday 16th August 1945), William James Pinson of Victoria Road, “the husband of Florence Isabella and father of Alma and Dick, aged 69 years, died on 15th August 1945”. Florence died there the following year. The Sydney Morning Herald (Monday 8th July 1946) tells us that Florence Isabella “relict of William and mother of Alma (Mrs. Dunn) and Dick, aged, 72 died at her Victoria Road home on 6th July 1946.” Alma stayed on there after parents died.
Alma Mary Isabella Pinson married Eric John Dunn of Leofrene Avenue in Marrickville in St. Clement’s Church, Marrickville in 1943. It was a mistake. The couple lived in Alma’s family’s home in Victoria Road in Marrickville even after her parents died. Soon after the marriage, Alma made a will in which she left most of her estate to her husband; however he turned abusive and controlling and in 1949, near the end of her life, she replaced it with one in which she named her brother Richard Thomas Pinson as her executor and his two children (who lived next door) the principal beneficiaries of an estate valued at approximately £1,500. Unfortunately, there was a problem.
Eric, who was a railway employee (Sydney Anglican Parish Records: 1814-2011: Ancestry.com), disputed the will. He claimed that Alma was an alcoholic and thus lacked “testamentary capacity.” Predictably, there was a considerable amount of press interest when the case was heard in the Probate Court. Eric said that he was a porter at the Central Railway Station and in 1946 and 1947 he had had to get up at 3.30 a.m. to go to work – which meant that he went to bed early. His wife stayed up drinking.
He claimed that on one occasion in 1948 she nailed up the door and went on a drinking spree after which he collected up six empty brandy bottles. On another occasion, he picked up thirty-seven empty wine bottles left lying around after a week of heavy drinking. He had to cook his own Christmas dinner (The Sydney Sun: Monday 1st May 1959)! Clearly his life was intolerable … A Sergeant Law testified that he frequently saw Alma in hotel bars and wine saloons bars, and he remembered on one occasion, in 1948, being called to the family home to find the fire department mopping up after Alma had placed her husband’s clothes on the floor of the lounge and set them on fire! He said that she was clearly “under the influence of liquor” when he spoke to her. She did not deny setting the clothes alight (The Sydney Sun: Tuesday 2nd May 1950).
Mrs. Beryl Pinson, Alma’s sister-in-law who lived next door explained why the marriage was so dysfunctional. She testified that Alma had frequently come to her with bruises on her arms and legs and she was getting increasingly desperate. She had said of her husband: “If he doesn’t get out, I will burn the place down.” Alma wanted to change her will and, according to Beryl, “she asked for a piece of paper and then dictated a will to me: She seemed in full possession of her faculties” (The Sydney Sun: Tuesday 2nd May 1950). After composing the will, Alma asked Beryl to keep it as “otherwise her husband would “giver her a belting”” (Sydney Morning Herald: Wednesday 3rd May 1950).
Sadly, those were different times. Mr. Justice Roper rejected the second will and refused to admit it to probate. He said that despite what he had heard: “I find it impossible to feel satisfied that on the date the will was made, the testatrix was of sound mind and understanding” (Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate: Wednesday 3rd May 1950). After stating that Alma was a chronic alcoholic he went on to say that: “At the time Mrs. Dunn made the will, she did not appear to be actually drunk. But her long addiction to alcohol so impaired her mental powers that she was unable to exercise her discretion in making a will.” His Honour directed that court costs be paid out of the estate.
The issue was finally resolved in March 1951 when Letters of Administration were granted to Beryl Vernie Pinson (New South Wales: Index to Deceased Estate Files: 1859 – 1958; See also: NRS-13660-30-10023-Series 4_374861).
Family Tree
Grandparents
Grandfather: Joseph Pinsent: 1819 –1881
Grandmother: Elizabeth Snell: 1824 – 1880
Parents
Father: Richard Thomas Pinson: 1850 – 1913
Mother: Mary Agnes McClune: 1846 – 1930
Father’s Siblings (Aunts, Uncles)
William Pinson: 1845 – 1845
William James Pinson: 1846 – 1899
Richard Thomas Pinson: 1850 – 1913
Louisa Pinson: 1851 – 1904
Sarah Pinson: 1853 – xxxx
John Pinson: 1855 – 1919
Frederick Arthur Pinson: 1857 – 1914
Andrew C. Pinson: 1859 – 1862
Ann A. Pinson: 1861 – 1862
Hannah Amelia Pinson: 1863 – xxxx
Henry Charles A. Pinson: 1865 – 1868
Male Siblings (Brothers)
Archibald Frederick Pinson: 1869 – 1951
William James Pinson: 1875 – 1945
Richard Alfred Pinson: 1877 – 1944
Thomas Henry Pinson: 1881 – 1938
Herbert Joseph Pinson: 1883 – 1917
Walter Pinson: 1885 – 1946
Arthur Ernest Pinson: 1889 – 1960
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