Vital Statistics
John Pinsent: 1831 – 1908 GRO0500 (Stoker, Royal Navy, Plymouth, Devon)
Frances Elizabeth Bennett: 1834 – 1898
Married: 1852: Plymouth, Devon
Children by Frances Elizabeth Bennett:
Mary Jane Pinsent: 1853 – xxxx (Married John Franklin Downing, Plymouth, Devon, 1876)
Charlotte Pinsent: 1854 – 1877
Frances Elizabeth Pinsent: 1856 – 1879
Sarah Rosina Pinsent: 1859 – 1935 (Married Frederick Young, Hampstead, London, Middlesex, 1881)
John Samuel Pinsent: 1861 – 1931
William Thomas Pinsent: 1865 – 1941 (Married Caroline Louisa Gloyne, Plymouth Devon, 1887)
Frederick Christopher Pinsent: 1867 – 1890
Alfred George Pinsent: 1872 – 1872
Amelia Blanche Pinsent: 1876 – xxxx (Married Henry Loveys Black, Bovey Tracey, Devon, 1899)
Family Branch: Bovey Tracey
PinsentID: GRO0500
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John Pinsent was the eldest son of Thomas Pinsent by his wife, Mary (née Mugford). He was born in Bovey Tracey in 1831. John’s father was an “agricultural labourer” who died in 1839 leaving his mother with a young family to look after. John was apprenticed out while still a young boy, and he was living with a local farmer, James Cox, and his family at Higher Combe in Bovey Tracey when the 1841 Census was taken. It was perfectly normal in those days for children to be apprenticed out when only nine years old.
John’s mother never remarried; however, she had a prolonged common-law relationship with George Tapper in the 1840s and that produced a half-brother (George Pinsent). Sadly, she died in childbirth in 1850. John’s younger siblings (William, Samuel and Mary Ann Pinsent) and his half-sibling (George Pinsent) were sent to the “Union Workhouse” in Newton Abbot after she died, and all but Mary Ann – who died shortly after her mother – were there when the census was taken in 1851. John, meanwhile, had left Higher Combe and was lodging with a Mr. Webber while he worked at one of the potteries in Bovey Tracey.
John was a “potter” when he married Frances Elizabeth Bennett, the daughter of a “boat builder” in Plymouth in January 1852. They had nine children, four boys and five girls, over the next twenty-four years. This was quite an achievement, particularly as he left the pottery and joined the Royal Navy shortly after the second was born. John’s first child, Mary Jane Pinsent, was born in Plymouth – where her mother’s family came from. The second, Charlotte, was born in Tunstall, in Staffordshire, which was then at the heart of the British pottery industry. Presumably John planned to continue on as a “potter;” however, for some reason or another – perhaps it was the start of the Crimea War in 1853 – changed his mind. He returned to Plymouth and joined the Navy in 1855.
John Pinsent’s Service Records [#36458 and #57491] in the National Archive (ADM 139/365 and ADM 188/34) show that he signed on as a “stoker”. He was “5 ft. 4 in. tall” at the time and had a “sallow complexion, brown hair and light brown eyes.” John resigned for another ten years when his first ten-years contract ended in February 1865.
John’s first posting was from 15th February 1855 to 2nd June 1856 on “H.M.S. Vulture.” It was during the Crimea War and he was awarded the “Baltic Medal” for his service (U.K. Naval Medals and Award Rolls: 1793 – 1972: Ancestry.com). From the Vulture he went to “H.M.S. Virago,” where he served from 3rd June 1856 to 9th June 1860. After that, it was on to “H.M.S. Wellington” from 10th June 1860 to 13th July 1860 and to “H.M.S. Indus” from 14th July 1860 to 23rd May 1861. John then transferred to “H.M.S. Steady” on 24th May 1861 and served onboard there through to 25th October 1864. “H.M.S. Jason” followed, from 26th October 1864 to 3rd December 1864. The navy had a great need for stokers! However, it is worth noting that the Indus was docked at Devonport where it was used as a training ship – so he got to go home occasionally.
On a separate list reflecting his second stint in the “Senior Service” John is shown to have transferred back to “H.M.S. Indus” from 4th December 1864 to 5th August 1867. From there, he was posted to “H.M.S. Liffey” from 6th August 1867 to the 29th November 1870. “H.M.S. Mersey” came next – he served there from 30th November 1870 to the 15th August 1872 and then transferred to “H.M.S Revenge” on 18th August 1872. He was on its crew list until 11th December 1873. It was then back to the “H.M.S. Indus” (the shore-station or “stone frigate” is it sometimes desparringly called) from 12th December 1873 to 26th February 1874 (as noted below).
John’s final assignment was on “H.M.S. Vanguard”, from 27th February 1874 to 24th February 1875. His timing could not have been better. It sunk in heavy fog after colliding with another ship off the coast of Ireland later that year. John was discharged and pensioned out of the Service from “H.M.S. Vanguard” at Spithead on 24th March 1875. His conduct was said to have been “very good” throughout his time in the Service. In fact, he was awarded a L 5 gratuity and given a medal for his long service [Chatham, Rochester and Brompton Observer: 27th March 1875).
John had shore-leave and his fertile wife Frances Elizabeth had had four daughters and was pregnant with their first son when the Census takers made their rounds in 1861. The family was living on Richmond Street in Plymouth. John was home at the time and his younger brother Samuel Pinsent, who was an unmarried “furniture upholsterer,” was living with his family. John and Frances were to add three more sons and a daughter in the years that followed.
John was also home when the Census takers returned a decade later. The family then lived on Wyndham Street in Plymouth. Some of his older children had moved on but Frances still had four of them, Sarah, John, William and Christopher to contend with. They were “scholars”. John was nominally attached to “H.M.S. Indus” and he was on a “list of officers, men, boys and marines and of all other persons not on board H.M.S. Indus on the night of April 2nd, 1871.” His younger brother Samuel Pinsent had married and moved out by then. His life is described elsewhere.
John’s second daughter, Charlotte moved up to London sometime in the 1860s and she was a “domestic servant” living with Mr. Willoughby R. Crofts and his family in Cannonbury Road in Ilsington when the 1871 Census was taken. She returned to Devon and died, aged twenty-three, in the “Workhouse” in Plymouth in 1877. Why there I am not sure, unless it was the “Workhouse Hospital” or “Infirmary”.
John’s third daughter, Frances Elizabeth, also went into “service;” however, she was much closer to home. When the ’71 Census was taken she was living with Mr. William Chapple, a “tobacconist and beer retailer” and his family on Old Town Street in St. Charles Parish, Plymouth. She never married. Sadly, she died in Plymouth, aged twenty-one, in 1879. John’s fourth daughter, Sarah Rosina Pinsent, had also gone up London. She married Frederick Young in St. James’s Parish Church in Hampstead Road in October 1881 and doubtless had a family of her own. As for John; he was a “pensioned stoker” living in St. Andrew’s parish with his wife and their three youngest children, William, Frederick and Amelia. The children were all listed in the census as “scholars” born in Plymouth.
When their children left school, John and Frances Elizabeth moved back to Bovey Tracey and the 1891 Census shows that they were living at Wifford Cottage in Bovey with their youngest daughter Amelia who was, by then, a “dress-maker,” and with their granddaughter Grace Downing, who was five years old. She was the daughter of John’s eldest daughter Mary Jane – who had married John Franklin Downing in 1876.
Frances Elizabeth Pinsent (née Bennett) died at Wifford Cottage in February 1898. Amelia Blanche Pinsent formally registered her death. Amelia married a “labourer” in Bovey Tracey the following year and he (Henry Loveys Black) was at home with her father in Wifford when an unfortunate accident occurred in front of their house. One of two boys riding a horse fell off and was badly injured. Her father summoned help but none came and the boy died the following day. The Coroner expressed surprise that there was no parish nurse at Bovey Tracey – and that it did not have a mortuary (Totnes Weekly Times: Saturday 15th September 1900).
John probably moved back to Plymouth to be near his eldest daughter, Mary Jane Downing shortly afterwards. He was living at Tollox Place in Plymouth when he died in November 1908. She was granted the probate of his will and effects, valued at £58 17s 3d, the following month (Calendar of Grants of Probate and letters of Administration).
John and Frances Elizabeth had four sons, Albert George Pinsent – the youngest – was born and died in Plymouth in 1872. The other three (John Samuel, William Thomas and Frederick Christopher Pinsent) grew to maturity; however, only William Thomas Pinsent married and, as far as I know, he had no children.
Family Tree
GRANDPARENTS
Grandfather: Thomas Pinsent: 1738 – 1818
Grandmother: Jane Glanville: 1757 – 1827
PARENTS
Father: Thomas Pinsent: 1806 – 1839
Mother: Mary Mugford: 1808 – 1850
FATHER’S SIBLINGS (AUNTS, UNCLES)
Thomas Pinsent: 1773 – 1799
Unknown Pinsent: 1782 – xxxx
Mary Pinsent: 1784 – xxxx
William Pinsent: 1786 – xxxx
Jane Pinsent: 1788 – xxxx
Jane Pinsent: 1791 – 1831
Samuel Pinsent: 1793 – 1798
MALE SIBLINGS (BROTHERS)
Thomas Pinsent: 1835 – 1884
William Pinsent: 1837 – xxxx
Samuel Pinsent: 1839 – 1912
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