Vital Statistics
Sidney Pinsent: 1846 – 1880 GRO0805 (Solicitor’s Clerk, Wrington, Somersetshire)
Anna Clark: 1844 – 1905
Married: 1871: Newton Abbot, Devon
Children by Anna Clark:
Eunice Bell Pinsent: 1872 – 1898
William Edward Sidney Pinsent: 1876 – 1911
Family Branch: Bristol
PinsentID: GRO0805
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Sidney Pinsent was the second son of William Pinsent by his probable second (?) wife Harriet (née Morgan). He was born in Ilsington, in Devon in 1846 and grew up there. He had an elder brother, William Henry John Pinsent who was born in Somerset and a sister Laura Emily Pinsent who arrived in Devon six years later. There were also two other children from the marriage (Emily and Alfred James Pinsent); however, they died young. William and his family lived at Trumpeter Cottage just to the north of Ilsington village on the road from Bovey Tracey to Widdecombe. The Census data tell us that William was a “farm labourer” in 1841 and a (probably alluvial) “tin miner” a decade later.
William’s wife, Harriet and her brother John Morgan were both from Dursley, in Gloucestershire and the two of them stayed in touch after Harriet moved down to Devon with her husband. In 1861, when the census-makers made their rounds, they found that William’s two younger children, Sidney and Laura Emily were both school-children who were living with their uncle, John Morgan, the “toll collector” at the New Turnpike Gate at Winscombe, in Somersetshire. Their elder brother William Henry John Pinsent was, meanwhile, a 20-year old “coachman” living near Churchill, in Somerset with three other servants employed by Ann Elizabeth Grant, a fund-holder from the West Indies. The centre of gravity of the family was moving north.
The 1871 Census refers to William as being an “agricultural labourer” living at Smokey Houses in Ilsington; however, he was said to be a “grocer” when his son Sidney married Anna Clarke who was the daughter of a “gentleman” later that same summer. Sidney was a “clerk.” The couple married in St. Paul’s Church in Wolborough (Newton Abbot). Anna came from Jersey in the Channel Islands. It may be a coincidence, but Sidney’s father William Pinsent probably had an early marriage to Sarah Earles (see elsewhere) and had a son by her, Thomas James Pinsent who married in Jersey, in 1856. Thomas James Pinsent founded what is now known as the AUSTRALIA Branch of the family.
Sidney died in Bristol at the age of thirty-four years (Western Times: Saturday 25th September 1880). He was a “solicitor’s clerk” by then. Perhaps his father-in-law had managed to find him a good position. Sidney and Anna had had two children: a daughter Eunice Bell Pinsent born in 1872 and a son, William Edward Sidney Pinsent, born in 1876. They had both been born in Wrington, near Axbridge, in Gloucestershire. Sidney’s widow, Anna, was granted probate of his estate (PCC Will and Administration Summaries).
The 1881 census records tell us that she took her children to live with her widowed mother and her, as yet unmarried, sister Horatia Clark, in Cleveland, in Somerset. Sidney had managed to leave Anna financially secure and the records show that she was an “an annuitant born in Jersey.” She never remarried. Anna and Eunice moved back to Bristol and the family was living on Argyle Terrace at the time of the next census. Eunice, unfortunately, died (unmarried) in 1898 and Anna was living with her son, William, on Coney Hill in Gloucester in 1901. She died there, in October 1905.
William Edward Sidney Pinsent was commonly called “Edward.” He grew up with his elder sister in Wrington and had started an apprenticeship with a Mr. Hobday, who was a “watch-maker, jeweler and gold-smith” in Clevedon, by 1891 (Census data). Mr. Hobday had two young nieces living with him and Edward may have had trouble growing up with them. In fact, he seems to have abandoned his apprenticeship and run away to sea! The 1901 Census shows that William E. S. Pinsent was a “merchant seaman (able seaman)” living with his mother in Gloucester.
In June 1901, Edward Sidney Pinsent “a respectably dressed young fellow, living with his widowed mother on Coney Hill was charged with indecent behaviour “ at the Police Court in Gloucester. His defense was that he was at home with his mother on the evening in question – and besides – he was “a seafaring youth” and had had an attack of malaria on his last voyage that had left him physically weak and not always responsible for his actions… . The magistrates were not impressed – particularly as it transpired that he had been fined £2 for a similar offence in a park in Bristol in 1898. The prosecuting barrister said there were many charges of a similar nature that could be brought against the prisoner but “he did not propose to go into them.” Perhaps that is just as well. Edward was sentenced to a month in prison with hard labour as a “rogue and a vagabond” (Gloucester Journal: Saturday 1st June 1901).
According to the prison records, Edward Sidney was a twenty-five years old 5 ft .6 ½ in. tall “seaman” with brown hair who belonged to the Anglican Church. He was remanded on 27th May and discharged on 28th June 1901 (Gloucestershire, England Prison Records: 1728 – 1914 [Ancestry.com]). His mother died in 1905.
Edward was back in Court on a similar charge in February the following year. This time, it was a “licensed victualler” from Cheltenham who witnessed the offence being committed on Chester Walk, near The Royal Crescent. Edward denied any intent to insult anyone. He said he was a “jeweler” and he admitted to having previous convictions. The Magistrates sentenced him to three months for being an “incorrigible rogue and vagabond” (Gloucester Citizen: Monday 19th February 1906).
On getting out of jail, Edward became a “timber-man” but he had still to learn how to control his impulses. He “conducted himself in a most disgraceful manner” in front of three little girls in Pontypridd (north of Cardiff, in Glamorganshire) on Boxing Day in 1906. Afterwards, he explained that he was drunk; however, given his record the Chief Magistrate said that he “only wished that the bench could commit the defendant to the assizes, as he thoroughly deserved ‘the cat.’“ Instead, he received the maximum penalty of yet another three months imprisonment (Evening Express: 27th December, 1906). He was a troubled man.
William Edward Sidney Pinsent never married. He died in the Stapleton Workhouse Infirmary, in Bristol, in January 1911.
Family Tree
GRANDPARENTS
Grandfather: John Pinson: 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
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