Hugh Pinsent: 1540 – 1626 DRO0006 (Farmer, Ilsington, Devon)
Johanna Woodley: xxxx – xxxx
Married: 1574: Bovey Tracey, Devon
Children of Joanna Woodley:
Jonas Pinsent: 1575 – 1637
Peter Pinsent: 1576 – 1597
Rechord Pinsent: 1578 – xxxx (Married Daniel Bound, Ilsington, Devon, 1610)
John Pinsent: xxxx – xxxx (Married Alice Rackcliefe, Ilsington, Devon, 1613)
William Pinsent: 1580 – xxxx (Married Deuns Noseworthy, Ilsington, Devon, 1611)
Margaret Pinsent: 1582 – xxxx
Mary Pinsent: xxxx – 1584
Thomas Pinsent: 1586 – xxxx
Agnes Pinsent: 1589 – xxxx (Married Humphrey Furlong, Ilsington, Devon, 1615)
Hugh Pinsent: 1591 – xxxx
George Pinsent: 1593 – xxxx
Jane Pinsent: 1594 – xxxx (Married Robert Bowden, Ilsington, Devon, 1620)
Matthew Pinsent: 1596 – 1616
Family Branch: Combe
PinsentID: DRO0006
Hugh (a.k.a. Hugo) Pinsent was the second son of John Pinsent by his wife Johanna. He grew up at Combe, his father’s farm in Bovey Tracey and likely ran it towards the end of his father’s life. John died in 1575 leaving Hugh, as his executor, to arrange for probate of his Will and settle his finances. The Will was filed with the Prerogative Court in Canterbury, so avoided the fate of mody of those filed in Exeter. It contains little mention of his sons, as they had already received their respective shares. John does, however, give bequests to his daughters and he asks that Mr. Southcote Esq., (one of the principal landowners in the district), receive £10 – on condition his “son Hugh do obtain and enjoy Comb Park during the said Hugh, his natural life.” Hugh, who had married Johanna Woodley, in Bovey Tracey, in 1574 – the year before his father died – set about reorganizing his father’s estate.
His father had lent £40 to his son John, who had agreed to repay the loan at a rate of £5 per year but now felt that his brother should, perhaps, just let it go …. Hugh, however, insisted that he continue to make the payments – and John, who was doubtless annoyed by this, sued his brother in the Court of Chancery (C8/3/24: 1575). He sought to recover and cancel the bond, claiming that his brothers were all involved in the original deal. Hugh for his part claimed that although he and his brothers, John and Thomas, had at one point, been jointly involved in a bond with a Robert Hayman, that issue had been dealt with and he was no longer responsible for any of his brother’s debts. They had their own land they could use as collateral for loans, if they so wished.
John’s father had also given John the lease of a “tenement, orchard and herb garden” in Bovey Tracey that he apparently had no need for, so he transferred it back to his brother Hugh Pynsent for £20. This agreement, made in 1576, seems to have been made amicably enough (Calmady Manuscripts: #372/6/3/2)! John was a merchant in Chudleigh by then. He also seems to have run an Inn. It is possible that John did retain some land in Bovey Tracey as he, or perhaps some other member of his extended family with the same name, held land in the parish in 1596. Bovey Church poor rates, show that this John’s “tenement at Combe and ground at Cleyparkes” were valued at 3s.
Hugh used part of his inheritance to acquire a property in Plymouth from John Cotes in 1577. It was subject to a lease for years to William Hawkins, Esq., and to an annuity of £4 for life to Thomas Tosse (Calendar of Devon Deeds Enrolled: 1536-1604: # 1123). Hugh kept this lease, disposed of his property in Bovey Tracey and moved to Ilsington where he had, through his wife, acquired a lifetime (entailed) free-hold interest in a tenement at Horridge – as well as the hundred acres of meadow and pasture that went with it. It had previously belonged to Peter Woodley and presumably came to him as part of Johanna’s marriage settlement. Hugh was clearly a moderately wealthy man, so he was assessed for taxes on goods valued at £5 in 1581 (Devon Taxes: 1581-1660): T. L. Stoate).
When Thomas Tapper of Ilsington died in 1580 he made the normal family bequests and asked that “Peter Woodlye, William Lambshead, Hugh Pinsent and John Tapper of Little Bovey be governors of Thomas Tapper’s children until they are of full age” (Principal Registry: Vol. 1553-87: Fol. 2-30: Moger Abstracts of Devon Wills: 2600-1800). Presumably Hugh looked after them while also looking after his own, ever-growing, brood. Hugh and Joanna (nee Woodley) had thirteen children between 1575 and 1596! The first two that I know about were baptized in Bovey Tracey but most of the others were christened in Ilsington – after the family moved to Horridge. For some reason, I cannot find the birth records for John and Mary. Their connection to Hugh is inferred.
As the “occupier” of Horridge, Hugh had both social and financial obligations that included the payment of Church tithes. They were an annual payment that would normally have gone to the local vicar, Rev. George Sweet; however, shortly after Hugh arrived in the parish, he leased his entitlement to the tithes to a local gentleman, Thomas Pomeroy, for the sum of £96 per annum. The tithe amounted to ten percent of the produce of the farm in any given year – which was fine for corn and cabbages but problematic when it came to livestock. Thomas Pomeroy felt that he was entitled to a tenth of the value of every cow, sheep, or pig etc. that was born on a property every year – regardless of number. Hugh, however, contended that it had been the custom of the parish “time out of mind” that the Vicar would receive the tenth born, whenever it appeared.
The issue was taken to the Consistory (Church) Court, in Exeter, in 1584. It found that the practice was at the discretion of the Vicar. Hugh then took his argument to the Court of Common Pleas and from there it somehow made its way to the Court of Star Chamber, in Westminster. Hugh’s two principal witnesses, Richard Hurst and Richard Brown, (both of whom were long-time residents of Horridge) swore that it was the custom of the parish that the Vicar receive the tenth beast. Thomas Pomeroy was outraged by what he took to be “their wilful perjuries and subornations” and, in reply, pointed out that if there was a change in either tenant or vicar in any year, then the parish tenants were happy to compound and pay proportionately for fewer than ten beasts – so they acknowledged the principle (STAC 5/P28/19; STAC5/P1/30; STAC5/65/29). How it ended, I am not sure; however, Thomas Pomeroy presumably continued to believe Hugh had a “froward and perverse mine and disposition.” Hugh, meanwhile, had learnt that there was power and money to be made as a lawyer!
Hugh had retained the house he had bought in Plymouth and had leased to Thomas Toss in 1577, and he wrote to the Mayor and the Commonality of Plymouth in 1592 regarding some documents in their possession. In this letter – which is now in the Plymouth Municipal Archives – Hugh acknowledges receipt of “twelve pieces of writing concerning certain lands and tenements lying within the Borough of Plymouth, sometime the habitation of Stephen Toss, merchant, deceased, which deeds and writings were there before deposited into the hands of the said Mayor and Commonalty in Trust” (The White Book: R. N. Worth, 1893). At the same time and by the same letter Hugh gives sureties for the payment of £20 “to the use of the eight heirs of the said Toss living”. Hugh needed the documents because he, and a man named John Cotes, were being sued by Thomas “Tasse” of Plymouth over their right to the property that Thomas’s father, Stephen, had lived in (REQ2 277-3: 1590). They needed the documents to respond.
A decade later, in 1602, Hugh was one of eight local men who were called upon to testify in the Exchequer Court as to whether their neighbours in the adjoining manors of Wreyland and Langaller in Bovey Tracey (who included a John Pinsent of Yeo, who was from a different branch of the family entirely) had the right to grind their corn where ever they chose. “Hugh Pyncent of Ilsington in the County of Devon, Yeoman, aged three score years and upwards” and another member of the family, “John Pyncent of Bovey Tracey in the County of Devon, Yeoman, of the age of xliij (43)” were formally deposed on 4th January 1602. They testified that according to their belief, their neighbours were entitled to take their grain wherever they liked (Exchequer Depositions: Hilary Anno 44, Eliz. No. 15, Devon). Whether the King’s men accepted this I am not sure, the issued seems to have lingered on for some time.
The above-mentioned John Pyncent may be the son of John “senior” of Combe by his wife Alice (née French) and thus Hugh’s nephew who was baptized on 13th November 1560 (see elsewhere). However, the same couple had another, short-lived, son, John, in Chudleigh in 1570, and then yet another, baptized in May 1571! Logically, it would seem likely that the first John died an infant. However, a case can be made for saying that this John lived. It is just possible that he, not his brother who was born in 1571, married Joan Downham in 1596 and founded the Pynsent baronetcy line (see elsewhere and The Pynsent Baronetcy: The Trials and Tribulations of a Litigious Family: 1687-1765]. The line descends through their father, “John Pynsent, of Chudleigh, aged 70, born in Bovey Tracey and dwelt there thirty years, then in Chudleigh three miles away.”
Hugh and Joanna had thirteen children, eight boys and five girls between 1575 and 1596. Jonas, the eldest son, became a lawyer and married. His other brothers are less well documented. However, John and William are known to have lived long enough to fight a case in Chancery in 1652. One of the depositions made at a hearing that year clearly names both them and their parents, so there can be no doubt (C78/1283/9). The case – which is described elsewhere – refers to a dispute that Hugh had over his share of the profits from a tin mine at Owlcombe in Bovey Tracey (C10/7/115). The lives of Jonas, John and William, who presumably inherited Hugh’s interest in the mine when he died, are discussed elsewhere. None of the boys seem to have stayed on in Ilsington. The farm reverted back to the Woodley family.
Peter and Matthew died relatively young and three (Thomas, Hugh, and George) are unaccounted for. They either died young or left the parish and have yet to be identified. Hugh’s daughter Rechord (a rare but seemingly legitimate female name) married Daniel Bound in Ilsington in 1610 and her sisters, Agnes and Jane, married Humphrey Furlong, and Robert Bowden, in 1615 and 1620 respectively.
Edward Furlong, Agnes’s father-in-law, was a copy hold tenant of a small farm at Lowton in Ilsington valued at £30 per annum and their marriage settlement included a provision that Humphrey and Agnes should have a quarter interest in the property – and that her name should be added to the Copy Roll to confirm that she would have her widow’s interest when Humphrey died. Presumably this was not done, as: when “Humphrey Furlonge of Alphington, gent.” died in 1620, Agnes and her father, Hugh, had to sue the Furlong family in Court of Chancery to recover her widow’s rights (C2/JASI/P12/20).
Hugh Pinsent had a life-interest in Horridge that must have come with widow’s rights after he died in 1626, as Johanna and her son Jonas were sitting tenants there when John Noseworthy of Halsanger in Ashburton and his son sold the farm to James Woodley, of Halsanger for £180, in 1631. The sale included: “The messuages, landes, howses, barnes, stables, courtlages, orchards, pastures, woodes, commons, tynmills, rents, reversions, services, waters etc. in Horridge, in Ilsington in the tenure of Johanne Pynsent, widdow, and Jonas Pinsent, her son:” (Calendar of Deeds Enrolled: #1812: 6 July 7 Chas. I. 1631):
While sorting out his estate, Hugh’s executrix, found a bond and sued Sir John Watts of Martock in Kent and Sir Thomas Lowe of London for the return of £20 that her late husband had once lent to Sir Thomas. They responded by saying that Sir Thomas had always been meticulous about his finances, and he had, almost certainly, repaid the loan. Hugh had had twenty years to recover the money by then, (undated) but he had made no effort to do so. Perhaps, he had just failed to return the bond (C6/572/293). According to my reading of a 1652 court case regarding Hugh’s interest in the Owlcombe tin mine, his wife Johanne may have still been alive in 1638.
Family Tree
Parents
Father: John Pinsent: xxxx – 1575
Mother: Johanna Unknown: xxxx – 1570
Male Siblings
John Pynsent: 1532 – 1615
George Pinsent: xxxx – 1598
Thomas Pinsent: xxxx – xxxx
Hugh Pinsent: 1540 – 1626
Walter Pinsent: 1544 – xxxx
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