Vital Statistics
Thomas Pinsent: 1782 – 1872 GRO1036 (Draper of Devonport and Greenhill, Kingsteignton, Devon)
Mary Savery: 1780 – 1859
Married: 1805: Stoke Damerel, Devon
Children by Mary Savery:
Mary Savery Pinsent: 1806 – 1884 (Married Rev. Thomas Horton, 1826; had children with Pinsent in their name)
Thomas Pinsent: 1807 – 1826
Anna Pinsent: 1809 – xxxx (Married Henry Milford, a barrister at Clifford’s Inn, Fleet Street, in London, 1874)
Elizabeth Savery Pinsent: 1811 – xxxx (Married Thomas Gammon, a glass manufacturer from Small Heath, Birmingham, 1840)
Sarah Savery Pinsent: 1812 – 1813
Savery Pinsent: 1815 – 1886 (Solicitor & Mayor of Durban, Natal, South Africa in 1857, 1859)
Sarah Pinsent: 1817 – 1847 (Married Thomas Smith James, solicitor, Harborne, Birmingham, 1847)
John Ball Pinsent: 1819 – 1901 (Brewer and Spirit Merchant in Newton Abbot; Married 1841)
Richard Steele Pinsent: 1820 – 1864 (Linen and Woollen Draper; Married Catherine Agnes Ross, 1850)
Emma Pinsent: 1823 – 1831
Family Branch: Devonport
PinsentID: GRO1036
References
Newspapers
Wills
Letters
Land documents
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Thomas Pinsent and Ann Ball’s only surviving son, Thomas Pinsent, was born in Wolborough (Newton Abbot) in 1782. He was still a teenager when his grandfather, Mr. John Pinsent of Moretonhampstead died in 1800. Thomas was his eldest grandson and the recipient of much of his real and personal estate. Why Mr. John passed over his own son Thomas (Thomas’s father) is unclear, but it may have been because he married twice and had an illegitimate daughter by his second wife before they married (see elsewhere). Mr. John left Thomas “junior” four hundred pounds and a property called “Caphills”, which had a Land Tax of £2 5s 0d per year. The latter was subject to an annual payment to his father (see elsewhere). He also received “Court Tenement”, which had a Land Tax of 12s per annum “in trust for his Cousin, Mary Pinsent“ during the lifetime of her father (another John Pinsent). Mr. John Pinsent gave his grandson Thomas and his father a joint two-thirds interest in the lease of his haematite iron mine in South Kelly. The other third went to his (three) grandaughters’ trustees, Moses Savery of Bovey Tracey and Joseph Wills of Ilsington.
Thomas Pinsent “junior” was still a young man when he married Moses Savery’s daughter, Mary, by License, in Stoke Damerel on 16th May 1805. Moses was a “serge manufacturer” who doubtless knew the cloth trade in-side out and helped his son-in-law set up what was to become a very successful drapery business on Market Street in Devonport. Moses died in 1809, leaving three of his children, Mary Pinsent (née Savery), and Richard and Susannah Savery as his executors. Some time later, Josias Coniam asked Thomas Pinsent to witness his will, which was probated in 1815. It also refers to Moses and Richard Savery [Inland Revenue Wills: 1815].
Thomas and Mary had four sons and six daughters between 1806 and 1823. Like his father and grandfather before him, Thomas was a Baptist and their births and baptisms are to be found in non-conformist registers. Their first daughter Mary Savery Pinsent was born in March 1806 and their first son Thomas Pinsent, in April 1807. They were baptized in Hope Baptist Chapel, in Devonport, in April 1813. Mary later married a non-conformist minister, Reverend Thomas Horton and had several children, most of whom had “Pinsent” in their name. Thomas died young. According to Hillary Preston (personal communication), he was buried in Bovey Tracey (Baptist?) Churchyard in 1826. However, I have yet to find his gravestone, although I have found his parents’.
Thomas and Mary also had a daughter Anna Pinsent who was born at #4 Stoke Terrace, Stoke Damerel in September 1809. She married late, after dutifully looked after her mother and father until they died in 1859 and 1872 respectively. Anna married Henry Milford, a barrister at Clifford’s Inn in London in 1882. Sadly, it was a short-lived marriage as Anna was a widow when she, herself, died two years later. She was buried in the Baptist Churchyard at Bovey Tracey alongside her parents, in 1884. The couples’ third daughter, Elizabeth Savery Pinsent was born and baptized in Stoke Damerel in March 1811. She grew up in Devon and married Thomas Gammon, a glass manufacturer from Small Heath, Aston (in Birmingham). They were married in the Salem Chapel in Newton Abbot in August 1840 (The Patriot: Monday 24th August 1840).
Thomas and Mary may also have had a short-lived daughter, Sarah Savery Pinsent who was born in 1812 and buried the following year. However, if they did, I know very little about her. They certainly had a daughter of the same name (Sarah Savery Pinsent) in Stoke Damerel in 1817. Sarah Savery’s baptismal record helpfully confirms that she was the granddaughter of Moses Savery. Sarah “of Greenhill, in Kingsteignton”, married Thomas Smith James, a solicitor from Harborne in Birmingham, in the Salem Chapel in Newton Abbot in August 1847 (The Patriot: Monday 16th August 1847). Her husband was the son of an independent minister. The Gentleman’s Magazine tells us that she died later the same year, 1847. Thomas and Mary had one other daughter, Emma Pinsent. She was born in 1823 and, again – according to Hilary Preston – was buried in the Baptist Church yard at Bovey Tracey when she died in 1831.
Thomas and Mary’s second son Savery Pinsent was born in Devonport. He trained as a solicitor and went out to the relatively-newly established British Colony of Natal in 1849. He never married. Savery returned to Devon after his father died in 1872. Their third son, John Ball Pinsent took over the management of a brewery his father had acquired. The fourth son, Richard Steele Pinsent, was free to help run the drapery business in Devonport. The lives and of the married sons are described elsewhere.
Thomas Pinsent was one of several trustees mentioned in an “assignment” of a lease for the Particular Baptist Chapel in Morice Square, Devonport, in 1814 and – as Thomas Pinsent of “Greenhill”, Kingsteignton – he seems to have been a trustee in an “assignment” of a lease for the “Union Street Baptist Chapel in Stonehouse” some twenty years later.
An item is the Western Times in October 1839 singles out Thomas Pinsent of “Greenhill” for his financial contribution to the building of the “Salem” Dissenting Chapel in Newton Abbott. Evidently, it was “an elegant and commodious chapel” that cost £1,000 (The Patriot: Thursday 10th October 1839). This Thomas was probably the drapery Thomas’s father (of the same name). However, he died in 1841; so when the newspapers acknowledged another Thomas Pinsent’s contribution to the rebuilding of the New Independent Chapel in Kingsteignton in September 1866, they were referring to someone else – Thomas Pinsent of Devonport. According to a decidedly Independent newspaper – “The Patriot” – the “village has a very handsome church, for the country since its renovation, but, unfortunately, the services performed in it are tinted with the prevailing practices of the day, and savour very much of Romanism.” The Dissenter of Kingsteignton would have none of it and they built their chapel in protest! (The Patriot: Thursday 27th September 1866).
The Dissenters were a close-knit group and they supported each other in sickness and health. As early as 1818, “T. Pinsent of Dock” contributed to a subscription being made in London to held a Mr. Hone and his family as they faced prosecution for their views (Champion: Sunday 11th January 1818). Similarly, when Mr. Legier of the Scripture Readers Society died suddenly in 1863, Thomas arranged for a subscription (whip-around) for the widow and her near destitute family (Western Daily Mercury: Wednesday 28th October 1863). He was committed to the chapel.
The development of the railway system in the west of England in the 1840s and 1850s helped with trade and communication throughout the country and it is hardly a surprise to find Messrs. Pinsent, Vicary, Ford and other “gentleman largely interested in the trade of the district” lobbying for a railway between Newton Abbot and Torquay (Morning Herald (London): Thursday 24th October 1844). Thomas Pinsent, Esq. of Greenhill was appointed to a committee to look into the matter (Herapath’s Railway Journal: Saturday 11th October 1845). The “South Devon Railway”, which was to service the docks in Plymouth was completed and opened in April 1849. Presumably it was Thomas who attended the opening, but it could have been one of his sons (Morning Herald (London) Saturday 7th April 1849).
There were several prominent “independently minded” families living in the Midlands at this time (the Priestley and Wedgwood families come to mind) and the arrival of the railway helped to unite England’s commercially minded “Dissenters” into a close-knit inter-connected community. In 1859, Thomas and one of his sons attended the funeral in Birmingham of Rev. John Angell James – who was one of the leading lights of the “dissenting community” and his deceased daughter Sarah’s erstwhile father-in-law (The Patriot: Thursday 13th October 1859). The Midland connection was maintained over the years and Thomas’s grandsons, (Sir) Richard Alfred Pinsent and Hume Chancellor Pinsent, moved to Birmingham to study and practice law (see elsewhere).
Thomas was a community leader and a retrospective look at the first election for aldermen in the new established borough of Devonport in 1836 shows that Thomas Pinsent was one of the Aldermen elected (Western Morning News: Friday 5th November 1886).
Thomas was also a noted reformer. Contemporary newspapers show that he supported Lord Ebrington, a Whig politician who believed in religious toleration in the 1830s. Thomas took an active part in a “Meeting of Protestant Dissenters of the Independent and Baptist Denominations” in Devonport in December 1833. The attendees resolved that they should not have to pay Anglican church rates and taxes; – that they should not have to marry according to the rites of the Church of England – or be excluded from seats of learning because of their faith; – and that a non-denominational system of recording births, marriages and deaths was absolutely necessary. They decided that the Government should be made aware of their concerns and Thomas was elected to a subcommittee tasked with sending their grievance to the Right Hon. Earl Grey (The Patriot: Wednesday 25th December 1833). He was politically active, too – attending a diner “of friends and supporters in this district of Sir J. Buller, Bart. M.P., and of Conservative principles” in Ashburton (Albion and Star: Thursday 19th February 1835).
The Independents were particularly concerned about what they saw as the “Romanization” of the educational system and “To counteract this growing evil, the London Congregational Fund Board, established in 1752 the Western Academy ….” Inevitably, it required support and a hundred years later we find T. Pinsent “of Greenhill”, making a £20 contribution to it’s well being (The Patriot: Thursday 11th November 1852).
The local newspapers also show that Thomas was elected vice-president of the “Devonport and Stonehouse Mechanic’ Institute” (which housed a library) in 1825, and that he served on committees for the “Newton District Reform Association” in 1835. Thomas gave £20 to the “South Devon and East Cornwall Public Hospital” the same year and was a steward on hand when His Royal Highness Prince Albert laid the foundation stone of a new “Infant Orphan Asylum” at Wanstead in July 1841 (Morning Herald (London): Tuesday 20th July 1841).
When Devonport held its first-ever Municipal Election in 1837, Thomas was one of the two Councillors elected to serve in Morice Ward. He chaired a talk entitled “Complete Suffrage Movement” by a Mr. Vincent in Newton Abbot in 1843. Presumably it was religious suffrage he was talking about. Thomas was, however, a businessman at heart and he objected strongly to a proposal to build a new and expensive “Pauper Lunatic Asylum” in 1835 as he felt there was adequate coverage elsewhere in the county. What his grandson Hume Chancellor’s wife, (Ellen Frances Pinsent), would have thought about that sixty years on does not bear thinking about! (see elsewhere). Thomas was, with others, a co-proprietor of a newspaper entitled the “Plymouth and Devonport Weekly Journal and General Advertiser for Devon, Cornwall, Somerset, and Dorset, (published) in Plymouth, in the county of Devon” that, presumably, supported the reform movement. The partnership was disbanded in 1851 (Morning Herald (London) Wednesday 26th February 1851).
Thomas Pinsent operated his main drapery business out of #34 Market Street in Devonport; however, he had a temporary outlet at #34 Catherine Street in 1840-1841. He seems to have acquired it through the purchase of the business of a bankrupt draper – Mr. Edward Blake (West Briton and Cornwall Advertiser: Friday 29th January 1841). Thomas seems to have had an eye for purchasing cheap stock from bankrupt drapers, and the local papers contain numerous advertisements showing how “Pinsent & Company” had just acquire a massive amount of stock that it just had to dispose of at ridiculously low prices … (Western Courier, West of England Conservative, Plymouth and Devonport Advertiser: Wednesday 20th September, 1837, etc.).
In the early days, there seem to have had sleeping partners in “Pinsent & Company.” Thomas’s partnership with Isaac Sparke ended by mutual consent in December 1821 (Mirror of the Times: Saturday 23rd March 1822) and his partnership with Robert Lee Warren ended in March 1836. It too was by mutual consent (The News (London): Sunday 20th March 1836). Warren was, presumably, retiring from of the business as he died not long afterwards. Needless to say, Thomas bought Warren’s share of the stock (West Briton and Cornwall Advertiser: Friday 2nd February 1838) and advertised yet another exciting sale, while at the same time taking the opportunity to inform the public at large of “Pinsent & Co.’s” appreciation of its patronage. Thomas clearly knew about public relations and the power of advertising (Western Courier, West of England Conservative, Plymouth and Devonport Advertiser: Wednesday 31st January 1838). He added staff in 1840. Thomas arranged his third and final partnership agreement with Joseph Nicholson and William Martin; however, it ended in 1843 (Western Courier, West of England Conservative, Plymouth and Devonport Advertiser: Wednesday 12th April 1843). By then, Thomas had decided that he and, later, his youngest son, Richard Steele Pinsent could run the business perfectly well by themselves. By the 1840s, the firm styled itself: “Pinsent & Co., Wholesale, Retail Drapers, Silk Mercers, Hosiers, Haberdashers”. It was quick to advertise the variety of their merchandise and the troubles they had gone through to acquire it: “Pinsent and Co. … beg again to announce their return from Ireland and Scotland and London, Lancashire and Yorkshire markets…” (Western Courier, West of England Conservative, Plymouth and Devonport Advertiser: Wednesday 11th October 1843).
Like other retail businesses, “Pinsent and Co.” was an obvious target for petty theft and contemporary newspapers recount numerous stories of attempts that had gone wrong. For instance, at the Devon Lammas Assizes in 1838, two children, George and Elizabeth Fraser, were charged with stealing a roll of silk and their father, William Fraser, was charged with receiving the stolen goods. They were convicted. Similarly, in February 1841, two ladies, “Bouverie de al Haussaye and Ariana Parkinson” were arrested after leaving the premises at #34 Catherine Street (shortly before it was sold off) with lace and kid gloves that they were seen sweeping off a sales counter. Later, they were found to have stolen goods from another store and they were convicted on charges relating to the latter occurrence (Western Courier, West of England Conservative, Plymouth and Devonport Gazette: Wednesday 3rd February 1841 and Wednesday 3rd March 1841).
That year, 1841, Thomas’s father, Thomas Pinsent, died leaving the family’s farm at “Greenhill” in Kingsteignton to be attended to. The census, taken in June after his death, shows that Thomas’s wife Mary (née Savery) and his daughter Anna Pinsent were living there, while he was with his daughter Mary Savery Horton and her husband, the Rev. Thomas Horton, in Devonport – presumably still looking after the drapery.
Although most Commercial directories published before 1830 refer to “T. Pinsent” as the owner and operator of the drapery business, from then on it was more commonly described as being in the hands of “Pinsent and Co.” (See Directories from 1844 onward). This change probably reflects the fact that Thomas was stepping back from the business, allowing his son Richard Steele Pinsent to run the drapery. Thomas returned home to Kingsteignton after his father died, but he remained senior partner in “Pinsent and Co.” until December 1859, a month after his wife Mary died. Richard Steele died in 1864 five years later, but the firm continued on under the ownership of Richard Steele’s nephew, Thomas Pinsent Horton. He kept the name of “Pinsent and Co.” and the business was profitable until at least 1904. According to Hilary Preston (personal communication), it was taken over by Boold’s Ltd. in 1909. Thomas Pinsent Horton must have also inherited the Pinsent family’s old home at #4 Stoke Terrace, Stoke Damerell as he seems to have died there in April 1921.
Edward Palk bought out a partner in the Mill-lane Brewery in Newton Bushel (Newton Abbot) sometime in the 1830s and took Thomas Pinsent on as a junior partner in the late 1830s. They were running the firm of “Palk and Pinsent, Brewers of East Teignmouth and Newton Abbot” together when they put their malt house in East Teignmouth up for sale in 1839 (Exeter and Plymouth Gazette: Saturday 9th March 1839). It was part of a plan to consolidated their activity in Newton Abbot. Thomas’s active involvement in the partnership was short lived as the London Gazette shows that he delegated his share of the management to his young son John Ball Pinsent in January 1841. Thomas left his son to learn the business and he took full control when Mr. Palk sold out, in 1844. John Ball ran the firm of “John Pinsent & Co.: Brewers & Wine & Spirit & Coal Merchants”, presumably under his father’s watchful eye.
This left Thomas free to develop “Greenhill” Farm and manage his other land-holdings, which were spread out in several parishes. Most were owned freehold; however, some of his land was leased for 99-years (on three lives) from Lord Clifford of Chudleigh. When his father died, Thomas Pinsent, “the draper”, paid Lord Clifford, the Lord of the Manor of Kingsteignton “Chief rent for Greenhills, part of Gildon’s and part of Blindwells”. From then (1841) on, that is where his main interests lay. However, it was not long before he was co-opted into community life.
When Thomas Pinsent resigned as a Guardian of the Poor of Wolborough, in April 1851, the committee passed the following resolution: “That this meeting, while it expresses regret at the resignation of Mr. Pinsent, who kindly took the office of guardian of the poor in an emergency, and who for many years past has carried out its duties very faithfully, now desires to return him their best thanks for the same, and express their best wishes for his future health and prosperity” (Exeter & Plymouth Gazette: Saturday 5th April 1851).
Perhaps health was becoming an issue, as Thomas would have been 69 years old in 1851. Thomas resigned from his position as a Director of the “Devon and Cornwall Banking Company” (a nice little earner with an annual pay-out of 7 ½ percent) at much the same time, and the same year he also stepped down from his position as a member of the “Teignmouth Harbour Commission”. His son, John Ball appears to have taken his place. 1851 was a critical year for the Commission, as it had to decide whether or not to dredge Teignmouth Harbour. It eventually concluded that it was not worth the cost—particularly if Exeter City was going to continue to impose tolls on imports coming into the city through Teignmouth.
Thomas was a successful farmer and he was elected a member of the “Royal Agricultural Society” in April 1850, shortly before he suffered from the “imposition” that caused him to resign as parish Guardian. Old age was catching up with him but he was, nevertheless, able to attend a meeting at “Beazley’s Globe Hotel” in November 1853 (Morning Herald (London): Friday 11th November 1853). He wasn’t alone either. “Mr. J. Pinsent” (probably John Pinsent of “Ware Barton” from the Hennock Branch) was also there.
Thomas needed a considerable amount of help managing “Greenhills farm” by then. In 1851, William Frost sued him in County Court for failing to pay a bill for services rendered in 1847. Apparently, Mr. Frost had been called in by one of Thomas’s staff to “drench” (give medication to) a sick calf and later to treat some of his sheep for “scab”. Thomas felt Frost had inflated the number of visits he had made and overpriced the medication. Frost owed John Ball Pinsent, Thomas’s son, some money so Thomas sent him there to reconcile his account. However, as it transpired, John Ball had recently taken Frost’s mother to court on some issue or other and the fight was largely brought about by ill feeling between the various parties. The “paper trail” Thomas had created left much to be desired and their Lordships were not impressed (Western Times: Saturday 11th October 1851).
By 1854, Thomas had decided to scale back and, despite winning a prize for good farming: “For the best ten acres of green crops, one acre at least to be mangold wurzel, and the remainder common turnips and Swedes, a prize of £2 2s, the gift of Thomas Wills, Esq.,” at the “Newton Abbot Agricultural Association” meeting that year, he arranged to sell off a portion of his stock: “a very important sale of shorthorn cattle, etc. took place at the seat of Mr. Pinsent of Greenhill, Devonshire, who was compelled to relinquish an admirably conducted farm in consequence of indisposition. A number of breeders from all parts of the county were present, and the cattle fetched high prices. For instance, a splendid cow, six months gone in calf, named the “The Gay Lass” fetched 75 guineas, and was purchased by a gentleman of Ashburton” (Hampshire Telegraph & Sussex Chronicle etc.: Saturday, January 6th 1855). The auctioneer also had “200 tons of prime globe and long red mangold wurzel, and about 70 tons of swedes and common turnips” to knock down.
Even in old age (he was 77 years old in 1859), Thomas was a committed reformer and not one to put up with any perceived injustice. He had been a member of the “South Devon Liberal Association” since the 1830s and he was irate at what he saw as vote buying, through bribery and “treating”, by the sitting Member of Parliament in May 1859 – during the run-up to the General Election. It was so bad that Mr. Thomas Pinsent and Mr. Brooking Soady petitioned Parliament to have a Select Committee review the handling of the election in Ashburton and (if appropriate) declare the results null and void (Morning Post: Wednesday 27th July 1859). Witnesses were duly heard and their depositions were sent to Westminster.
Thomas nearly came to blows with the “Newton Abbot Board of Guardians” over a matter of sewage disposal in 1867. The Board had approved what it must have felt was a reasonable plan for sewage waste management; however, it would have created an outlet on Thomas’s property near his house. He filed an injunction in “Court of Chancery” to prevent it from happening (Exeter & Plymouth Gazette: Friday 30th August, 1867). Eventually, a committee of the Board visited the site and, according to the same source (27th September) accepted that “it would prove a great nuisance to him”. The case of “Pinsent v. Vestry of the Parish of Kingsteignton” was heard in over the winter of 1868 and into the new year (Morning Herald (London): Wednesday 24th February 1869) and that April the parishioners of Kingsteignton were asked to pay a supplementary rate of 2s, in part to help defray the Vestry’s costs in the action. Needless to say, Thomas objected to paying his portion, which amounted £6 6s 3d! The issue was discussed at the local “Petty Sessions” that December and it was decided that Thomas should pay up and bring his own action against the parish “Overseers” in the County Court to recover the payment. What became of it all, I do not know.
Thomas put his house at “Greenhill”, his horse and carriage (“a clever cob horse, accustomed to be driven in a carriage, very quiet and well suited for an invalid or elderly person to drive”), and most of his remaining farm implements and up for sale in August 1868 and he and his daughter Anna moved to Torquay, where he died in January 1872. Thomas was buried with his wife at the back of the Baptist Churchyard in Bovey Tracey. His headstone reads: “The resting place until the time of the resurrection of all things of Thomas Pinsent of Greenhill, Kingsteignton, born January 17th, 1782, died January 21st, 1872, and Mary, his wife, daughter of Moses Savery of this place, born February 20th, 1780, died November 29th, 1859 “them all which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him””. The adjacent stone reads: “In memory of Anna, widow of Henry Milford and daughter of Thomas Pinsent of Greenhill, Kingsteignton, who died at Torquay, July 8th, 1884, aged 75 years “Quietness and Assurance for ever”, also of Savery Pinsent, brother of the above who died at Kingsteignton, May 18th, 1886, aged 70 years”.
Thomas wrote his Last Will and Testament in December 1869 and his daughter Anna Milford, his son John Ball Pinsent, and Rev. Evan Edwards, a “dissenting minister”, proved it. In addition to his property at “Greenhill” and “Gildon’s” in his home parish of Kingsteignton, Thomas owned land at “Potworthy” (Pawtrey?) and “Barramore Bridge” (Bridge?) in North Bovey, and at “Yate”, in Torbryan. He also owned a farm in Ashburton called “Goodstone”. Thomas’s father-in-law, Moses Savery had left “Goodstone” to his son Richard Savery in 1809, but it must have passed from him to his sister, Mary (née Savery), Thomas’s wife (Devon Records: 63/2/1/1/673). According to Hilary Preston (personal communication), the tithe records show that Richard Savery owned “Goodstone” as late as 1830, so it must have come to Thomas and Mary after that. Thomas also held a leasehold property in Stoke Damerel that he gave to his son-in-law, Rev. Thomas Horton. He requested his executors wind up his estate and distribute the proceeds between his surviving children and his grandchildren—with the proviso that John Ball, who then occupied the family brewery business in Highweek should have a right of first refusal to buy those parts of it he did not already own, and Anna and her sister Elizabeth (Gammon) should have similar rights of first refusal on his land in Kingsteignton. At probate, his estate was valued at £25,000. It was difficult to subdivide some the properties equitably, and the executors contacted Lord Clifford to see if he would be prepared to exchange a plot of land “formerly held by Thomas on lease for lives but adjoining Greenhill” for other freehold plots owned by the deceased (Ugbrooke Archive). It would have helped to consolidate the holding.
One complication arising from the Will was that he left “his faithful servant” Mary Gill an annuity of £10 out of unspecified lands at “Greenhill” and “Gildon”, and the executors had to exempt any land of this charge before it could be sold. In 1911, Pidsley and Sons, Solicitors, prepared a legal abstract relating to the transfer of “New Park” field (an area of one acre and six perches) to J. Whidborne for the construction of what was later to become “Fairfield Cottage”. The document (obtained from Sheila Yeo of Kingsteignton; personal communication) is a schedule that lists numerous documents that would shed light on Thomas’s land holdings – if they still exist. They include leases, transfers and wills etc. Unfortunately, none are described in detail. They would add considerable insight into the history of a small part of “Greenhill” estate between 1805 and 1833.
The catalogue refers to Indentures of Lease and Release between Thomas Pinsent “the younger” (as he was then), Moses Savery and Charles Luxmoore dated November 1805 (a few months after Thomas’s marriage to Moses’s daughter Mary, and indentures drawn up between “Betsey” Pinsent, (Thomas Pinsent “the younger’s” sister), her intended husband Westcott Doble Wyatt, Samuel Dark, Thomas Bartlett, Moses Savery and Thomas Pinsent “the younger” in May 1808 – at the time of her marriage. Similarly, it refers to indentures drawn up between Westcott Doble Wyatt and Thomas Pinsent “the younger” in 1810. “Betsey” had inherited a partial interest in “Greenhill” from her sister Anna Thomasin Croat (Joseph Pinsent’s first wife) in 1799. It looks as if Thomas had been trying to tie up loose ends.
The schedule also lists “Indentures of Lease and Release” between Joseph Pinsent from the HENNOCK branch and Thomas Pinsent (?) signed in January 1822. These may relate to a farm at “Lettaford” in North Bovey parish that Thomas owned that was immediately adjacent to one that Joseph owned (“Lower Jurston”) across the parish boundary in Chagford. In May 1829, there seems to have been an agreement signed by J. Pinsent, Joseph B. Pinsent and Eliz. Pinsent and Thomas Pinsent (?). Joseph B. and Elizabeth are, presumably, Joseph’s children by Thomas Pinsent “the younger’s” cousin and Joseph’s second wife, Elizabeth Pinsent. Life gets complicated. They were born in 1806 and 1805, respectively. Perhaps Joseph returned some residual interest in “Greenhill” acquired from his first wife, Anna, for a title to the farm at “Lettaford”.
In the spring of 1833, several more “Indentures” were drawn up: one was between Richard Savery (Moses’s son and Mary Pinsent’s brother) and John Foster, Thos. Pinsent “the younger” and Mary his wife, (of the second part) and “the said Thomas Pinsent, the younger of the third part”. This was followed the next day by another between Mary Pinsent and Richard Savery, and Thomas Pinsent; and immediately thereafter by “indentures of lease and release” between John Noseworthy and Thomas Pinsent (whether the elder or younger is unclear). These most likely relate to the “Goodstone” property discussed above. A month or so later, in June, Thomas Pinsent and Mary, his wife, signed an “indenture” with William Terrell. The most notable aspect of these legal abstracts is that Thomas Pinsent “the younger” was the principal signatory for “Greenhill” and not his father, although the latter lived and presumably managed the estate until 1841.
Thomas’s executors put his farms at “Higher and Lower Goodstone”, in Ashburton (298 acres), “Potworthy” and “Bridge”, in North Bovey (136 acres) and “Higher and Lower Yate”, in Torbryan (91 acres) up for auction with sitting tenants in July 1872. At the same time, they attempted to auction off numerous small plots of land scattered in and around Kingsteignton on 6th August (Exeter Flying Post: Wednesday 17th July, 1872).
The executors then turned their attention to the house at “Greenhill” and put its contents up for auction on 3rd and 4th July 1873 (Exeter Flying Post: Wednesday 25th June, 1873). The house and grounds followed; they were put for auction in June 1876 but failed to reach the reserve price of £8,000 (Western Times: 23rd June 1876). The executors tried again in 1880 and this time they sold, albeit for less than what must have been hoped for: “The property comprises rather more than 40 acres of rich pasture land, pleasure grounds and orchards; with residence surrounded by terrace walks and pleasure gardens laid out at considerable cost; and planted with many valuable trees, shrubs, &c., an Italian garden with fountain; a moat, lake, with islands of local stone; an extensive range of conservatories, large kitchen garden and well-stocked orchards. The stabling and outbuildings are well arranged, substantially built, and sufficiently roomy for small hunting establishment and stock farm. Many of the buildings having been erected by Pinsent, a former owner, for the accommodation of a small herd of shorthorns. The property is well situated for hunting and fishing, and makes a pleasance of many charms well suited for a gentleman fond of rural pursuits. The auctioneer announced that the purchaser might take the timber at £50, or by valuation. The property was put up in one lot, and started at £4,000. The bidding lay between Mr. Symons (Rendell and Symons, land agents and auctioneers, Totnes) and Mr. W. S. Borton, of Totnes, and after a spirited competition the latter became the purchaser at the very satisfactory price of £5,550” (Taunton Courier and Western Advertiser: Wednesday 28th April 1880). Presumably neither of Thomas’s then living sons, Savery and John Ball, felt they could afford to maintain such a property.
Thomas’s daughter Anna Pinsent stayed home and looked after her parents until they died. However, she was then free to marry and she married a barrister, Henry Milford of Clifford’s Inn in Bloomsbury in London in 1874 (Australian and New Zealand Gazette: Saturday 28th February 1874). He died in 1882 and she died two years later. She was buried next to her parents in the Bovey Tracey Baptist Church graveyard. Her stone reads: “In memory of Anna, widow of Henry Milford and daughter of Thomas Pinsent of Greenhill, Kingsteignton, who died at Torquay, July 8th, 1884, aged 75 years “Quietness and Assurance for ever.”” Her brother Savery joined her there in 1886.
Family Tree
Grandparents
Grandfather: John Pinsent: 1723 – 1800
Grandmother: Elizabeth Puddicombe: 1719 – 1795
Parents:
Father: Thomas Pinsent: 1754 – 1841
Mother: Anne Ball: 1747 – 1794
Father’s Siblings (Aunts, Uncles)
Elizabeth Pinsent: 1743 – xxxx
John Pinsent: 1745 – 1804
Mary Pinsent: 1748 – 1749
Mary Pinsent: 1751 – 1773
Thomas Pinsent: 1754 – 1841 ✔️
Sarah Pinsent: 1759 – 1782
Male Siblings (Brothers, Half-Brothers)
Thomas Pinsent: 1779 – 1779
Thomas Pinsent: 1782 – 1872
John Pinsent: 1799 – 1870
William Pinsent: 1808 – xxxx
Charles Pinsent: 1812 – 1863
George Pinsent: 1814 – 1894
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