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Alfred Charles Pinsent was a “builder’s carpenter” by profession and Harold William followed him into the construction business. He became a “master plumber” and married Frances Mary English in Teddington, in Middlesex, in 1936. Before the war, the couple lived at “Long Leat”, on Common Road, in Esher.
As a boy in August 1921, Harold had been awarded the “Boy Scout’s”“Silver Medal” for saving another boy from drowning. He must have been a shy lad, as he is said to have slipped away afterwards without saying anything. I imagine he was mortified when his friends cheered loudly and carried him around, shoulder high, on the wheel of a truck at the presentation event held in his honour (Surrey Mirror: Friday 9th June 1922). Needless to say the press were on hand and his photograph duly appeared in the London Daily Chronicle (Friday 14th July 1922).
Harold was involved in another accident in November 1938. Unfortunately, this one led to the death a Mr. Green five months later. Harold had been driving a car at a “moderate speed” (according to a witness) and had swerved to avoid Mr. Green, who was an elderly pedestrian crossing the road at an angle. Unfortunately, Mr. Green seems to have been startled. He turned the wrong way and was hit by the car. He suffered a concussion and died of a cerebral hemorrhage several months later. The Coroner concluded that his death was related to the accident, but he returned an open verdict because there was insufficient evidence to show how the accident had actually happened (Surrey Advertiser: Wednesday 19th April 1939).
Harold was said to be a “building and heating engineer” when the Pre-War Register was compiled in 1939, However, he was also a “plumber”. There is no contradiction here, as many houses used water-filled radiators to keep them warm. Harold joined forces with his brother Stanley after the war and built the firms of “Pinsent, Bros, Plumbers” of #13 Ronelean Road, in Surbiton, and “Pinsent Bros Builders” – which had a site office at #102 Grierson Road, in Forest Hill, S.E. London by 1949. According to the Commercial Directories of the day, the brothers later merged the two firms to form “Pinsent, Bros. Limited, Builders & Contractors, Beaconsfield Road, Tolworth, Surbiton”. The latter firm also had premises in Queensmere Road, in Wimbledon in 1957. “Pinsent Bros.” relocated to 290 Elwell Road, Tolworth, in 1961 and it was still operating out of the same premises in 1974. The brothers were well located and their timing, of course, was impeccable – given the amount of rebuilding required in and around London in the aftermath of the War.
Harold’s marriage to Frances did survive the war. They divorced and Harold married Mary Swain Robinson in 1945. They had a son in 1948 and a daughter in 1951. Harold and Mary moved to 40 Guildford Avenue, in Surbiton the following year and thus it became the family home. It was a house that “Pinsent Bros.” had built. Harold, died in July 1967 and probate of his estate was granted in Lewes to Lloyds Bank Limited in November that year. It was valued at £22,967 (National Probate Calendar: Index to Wills and Administrations). Mary Swain Pinsent, stayed on there for a few years, after her husband died; however, she was living at Woodview, Oakhill Grove, in Surbiton when she wrote to my father in the 1970s.
Mary Swain (“Mollie”) Pinsent told my father that her brother-in-law Stanley’s son Dennis Pinsent had been working in the business with him. Presumably he took over the firm when his own father died in 1985.
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Harold Ross was the eldest son of Sidney Hume Pinsent by his wife, Beatrice Elena (née Le Bas). He was born in Rosario, Argentina but a British Subject. His father registered his birth at the “British Consulate” in Buenos Aires.
Harold spent his early years in Argentina and was then sent to school in England. He left Buenos Aires for Southampton on the “S.S. Andes” on 28th July 1925. He was twelve years old and went by himself. His grandfather, Adolphus Ross Pinsent, probably met him in Southampton. Ross had married twice and had a son Basil Hume Pinsent by his second marriage who was a similar in age to Harold (despite being a generation apart!) and they were sent to the boarding school together. They went to “Downside”, a major Catholic “Public” (private) School at Stretton in the Fosse in Somerset. Harold’s younger brothers, Paul Desmond and Roger Philip, were later to join them there and the youngest Neville James Quintus followed a few years later.
Harold and his brothers must have considered their grandparents home at “52 Woodbury Park Road, Tunbridge Wells”, as their home while they were in England – even after their grandfather died in 1929. How often they made it back to Buenos Aires and how much time they spent there is unclear; however shipping manifests show that on one occasion Harold, Paul and Roger went back to Buenos Aires on board the “Royal Mail Steam Packet Company” ship “Asturias”, which left Southampton on 1st of August 1930 and returned on the “Almanzora” on 30th September. They came back for the start of the new school term. Harold must have left Downside in the late 1920s, but he was back for the prize-giving ceremony in 1932 (Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette: 18th June 1932).
Harold Ross returned to Argentina on leaving school and, for a while, consulted for some of the firms his father worked for. Interestingly, the Brazilian Immigration authorities have a copy of a visa, with a photograph, that shows that he entered Brazil on 6th August 1937. What he was doing there is not specified. Presumably it was a business-related.
Harold Ross returned to England with his parents, his sister and his younger brother Neville James Quintus Pinsent (who was by then a student at “Downside”) in 1937 and then returned to the Americas with his father, via New York. They left Southampton on the “S.S. Franconia” on 24th December 1937. They arrived with a 30-day visa on 2nd January 1938. His father, Sidney Hume Pinsent, seem to have been there to visit the offices of the “Carborundum Company”. The ship’s manifest describes Sidney as being an “Engineer” and Harold Ross a being a “salesman”. They were both “in transit” to Buenos Aires.
Harold Ross was in Argentina when the “Second World War” broke out and, as he was unable to get back to England to join up directly; instead, he went north to Canada. He was one of five young Argentinians of British parentage who took the “S.S. Tabor” from Buenos Aires to Boston in February 1941 and then crossed the border and arrived in Ottawa to join the “Royal Canadian Air Force.” This was under the “British Commonwealth Air Training Plan.” According to the local newspapers, he was 27 years old and he had left an Argentinian firm that manufactured kitchenware in order to join up (Ottawa Journal: 25th March 1941).
Harold and his squadron appear in The Gazette, 11 December 1944.
Harold Ross was sent to Camp Borden for flight training and passed out at the top of his class (Course 34 – July 27th to 7th October 1942). “Flight Lieutenant” Harold Ross Pinsent, as he then became, was shipped to England and joined “400 (City of Toronto) Squadron” of the “Royal Canadian Air Force”. He flew “de Havilland D.H. 98 Mosquitos” on aerial reconnaissance missions and, despite the occasional mishap, survived the war. On one occasion, in April 1944, his battery went flat on a flight out of “R.A.F. Odiham”, in Hampshire and he had to abort the mission (AviationSafetyNetwork: ASN Wikibase Occurrence #184813).
Harold Ross Pinsent arranged a few days leave from flight training in January 1942 and married Cynthia Mary Nelson Bobbett in Connecticut in the United States. She had flown up from Argentina and entered the United States on a short-term visa. Her Immigration documents show that she had an Irish mother and an Argentinian father. Presumably, she returned to Buenos Aires and waited out the war. Fortunately, her husband returned. The Brazilian immigration authorities show that Cynthia went down there for a visit, in 1945. I do not know why. The visa comes with a photograph.
Harold died in an automobile accident in Buenos Aires in January 1988. His death was reported in the London Times. Cynthia died there three years later and her death was registered at the British Consulate in Buenos Aires.
Harold and Cynthia had three children, two sons and a daughter who were born in Buenos Aires shortly after the war. They were educated in England and are probably still living in South America.
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