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Leila May Grace Pynsent: 1887 – 1924 (Married Joseph James White: Ashfield, New South Wales: 1907) Elizabeth Mary Pynsent: 1890 – 1938 (Married Percy Gordon: Erskineville, New South Wales: 1910) Joseph Burton Pynsent: 1890 – 1968 (Married Ethel Maud Budd: Canterbury, New South Wales: 1917) Charles Pitt Pynsent: 1893 – 1975 (Married Margaret O’Donnell: Canterbury, New South Wales: 1931) Beatrice M. Pynsent: 1894 – xxxx (Married James A. Philips: Kiama, New South Wales: 1914) Alfred Francis Pynsent: 1896 – 1981 (Married Elsie Florence Jefferies: Canterbury, New South Wales: 1922) Florence Lillian Pynsent: 1898 – 1986 (Married Alfred McGuiness: Marrickville, New South Wales: 1919) Olive Gertrude Pynsent: 1900 – 2000 (Married Sydney J. Quill: Canterbury, New South Wales: 1923) Thomas Ogden Pynsent: 1905 – 1980 (Married Lillian May Clough, Canterbury, New South Wales: 1931) Dorothy W. Pynsent: 1908 – 1980 (Married Edward C. Burgess: Redfern, New South Wales: 1927) Nellie Theresa Pynsent: 1910 – xxxx (Married Robert Francis Ball: Canterbury, New South Wales, 1929)
Joseph William Pynsent was the third and eldest surviving son of Joseph Burton Pynsent of Bristol and Melbourne by his common-law wife, Mary Bridget Fogerty. He was born in St. Kilda (where his father ran a dairy farm) in 1862 and was one of four siblings below the aged of twenty-two years (Mary Ann Theresa Pynsent, 22; Elizabeth Ellen Pynsent, 21; Joseph William Pynsent,16; and Alfred Thomas Pynsent, 9) who were left to run it when their parents died.
Joseph Pynsent tells his story to the court, as described in The Argus, 21 Dec 1872.
Joseph delivered milk for his father and was called to testify when a young girl he saw on his rounds was charged with murdering and improperly disposing of the body of her new-born baby (The Argus: 21 December 1872). It was probably still-born.
Joseph’s eldest sister Theresa (“Teresa”) took responsibility for the farm on Acland Street after her parents died and she was there with her brothers when, as discussed elsewhere, a strange horse accidentally found itself in their farmyard and in a panic managed to impale itself on a railing (Geelong Advertiser: 18 November 1886).
A horse meets a terrible fate, as described in the Geelong Advertiser, 18 November 1876.
Theresa found herself in court on several occasions charged with allowing her cows to graze on public land in and around St. Kilda. Nevertheless, it was her brother Joseph (aged 16) who wrote to the “St. Kilda Municipal Council” in 1878 offering to pay £60 per annum for the right to graze the family’s cattle on (200 acres) of unsold and un-fenced property in the Borough – provided the council enforce the by-law that had cost them so much, and prevented other people from grazing their cattle on it. Unfortunately, the issue was complicated by the legal status of much of the land and the proposal was shunted off to St. Kilda’s “Public works Committee” where it almost certainly died (The Telegraph, St. Kilda, Prahran and South Yarra Guardian: Saturday 19th October 1878).
Joseph’s sisters both married in 1883: Mary Ann Theresa Pynsent married Edward Taylor and moved to South Yarra, and Elizabeth Ellen Pynsent married Paul Reinhold Carl Boehm and left to live in Newport, in Victoria. The boys seem to have found it too difficult to run the farm on their own, and they gave up the lease. Joseph moved to Sydney in New South Wales, and Alfred Thomas, his younger brother, moved to Hotham, in Victoria. He was later to join the “New South Wales Imperial Bushmen” and fight in the Boer War.
Two boys make a difficult rooftop escape during a flood, as recounted in the Sydney Morning Herald, 21 February 1890.
Joseph Pynsent married Nellie Garland, the youngest daughter of the late Mr. Joseph Garland of Hobart in Tasmania at St. Peter’s Church, Woolloomooloo, in East Sydney, in January 1886. According to Sydney’s Local Directories, the couple could be found running a small dairy farm near the Old South Head Road in Bondi (just south of the Royal Sydney Golf Links) near the coast the following year. The family lived on Simpson Street. Evidently the dairy flooded in February 1890 and two lads “who had taken refuge in an outhouse were rescued with considerable difficulty through the roof” (Sydney Morning Herald: Friday 21st February 1890). There was considerable erosion and loss of land and some of the cows were destroyed and buildings damaged; nevertheless, the dairy survived. Two years later, John Bede Regan was charged with maliciously causing damage to one of Joseph’s slate roofs. He was fined £3 and ordered to pay 1s in damages – so it can’t have been too severe (New South Wales Police Gazette: 6th March 1892).
Joseph Pynsent was ambitious, and he ran as an alderman for Bondi Ward, in South Sydney in 1900 (Sydney Morning Herald: Tuesday 6th February 1900; The Daily Telegraph: 5th February 1900). He failed, but came second.
Two years later, he arranged that the city’s milk vendors form a union (Sydney Morning Herald: 18th April 1902). This may have been a response to growing complaints about the quality of the milk being sold as, a few years later, he told the union that the only way to do away with bad practice was for the Government to regulate the quality of the product sold (Evening News: 25th January 1908).
Joseph Pynsent steps aside, as described in the Sydney Morning Herald, 3 February 1904.
He had another opportunity to run for Municipal Office in 1904 and was thought to be the likely winner. In doing so, he appealed to the electorate by saying “ratepayers of Bondi Ward, do not pledge your votes: J. W. Pinsent (sic), a local man, is a candidate, and will serve you faithfully” (Sydney Morning Herald: Saturday 9th January 1904). However, for some reason or other, “pressure of business” he later decided to back out of the race (Sydney Morning Herald: 3rd February 1904).
Modern map of Bondi and Marrickville, Sydney.
Joseph and Nellie had nine children (Leila May Grace; Elizabeth Mary; Joseph Burton; Charles Pitt; Beatrice M.; Alfred Francis; Florence Lillian; Olive Gertrude; and Thomas Ogden Pynsent) while living in the Bondi (part of Waverley) and he or they probably out-grew the dairy. He went in search of a bigger one and bought the “Warren Dairy” farm in nearby Marrickville in around 1907 (Sands Directories: Sydney & New south Wales: 1858-1933). Perhaps it was less prone to rising damp! The family lived on Illawarra Road, near Northcote Street, which places the farm near Henson Park and what is now Marrickville High school. While there, they had two more children (Dorothy W. and Nellie Theresa).
Money may have been tight in those days as Mr. Pynsent of Canterbury (presumably Joseph William) impounded a bay gelding from its paddock and threatened to arrange to have it sold by the “Pound-Keeper” in 1909 – unless he was paid the guinea its owner owed him. (Government Gazette: New South Wales: Wednesday 25th August 1909).
Pynsent’s lawyer corrects the record in the Evening News, 11 February 1910.
Joseph, meanwhile, had his professional reputation to protect. A government inspector accused him of watering down his milk and thus being out of compliance with the “Pure Food Act,” and he was charged with adulterating his milk in February 1910. The New South Wales Government prosecuted Joseph “Pinsent” at Ashfield County Court. He pleaded not guilty. The inspector stated that when Joseph saw him coming, he jumped down from his cart and carried a milk-can into the dairy. When he returned, the inspector bought a sample from the cart and then demanded to buy some out of the can he had seen being taken away. Joseph offered up some milk but it was not clear to the inspector that it had come from the right can. Later, the inspector showed his badge to Mrs. Pinsent and asked to buy milk from a can he saw inside her kitchen door. She said it was not for sale, but he took some of the milk anyway and paid. He later found that it was adulterated with 8.24 per cent of water. The magistrates considered Joseph’s behaviour suspicious but without a valid sale they felt that they had to dismiss the case (Evening News: Monday 7th February 1910). Perhaps he got lucky. However, he objected to the way the case had been cast in the newspaper and had his solicitor submit a rebuttal a few days later (Evening News: Friday 11th February 1910).
In 1914, Mr. Cunningham, a Sydney milk vendor applied to the Courts for an injunction “to restrain, for a period of six months, Denis Grey, Cyril Carpenter and “Bery” (sic) Pinsent, formerly employed by him as carters from disclosing the names and addresses of his customers or endeavouring to obtain their custom or in any way interfering with them for that purpose” (Sydney Morning Herald: Thursday 1st January 1914). My guess is that “Bery” was Joseph’s son Joseph Burton Pynsent. It was obviously a competitive business and “carters,” it seems, rarely signed confidentiality agreements! Joseph Burton seems to have had a troubled past. Evidently he went missing for a while in 1908 (New South Wales Police Gazette and Weekly Record of Crime: 1st April 1908).
Burton Pynsent is reported missing in the New South Wales Police Gazette and Weekly Record of Crime, 1 April 1908.
Joseph Burton’s brother Alfred Francis Pynsent also got into trouble now and then. On one occasion, a Mrs. Henrietta Maxted sued him for £150 in damages for injuries she claimed he had been caused by his negligence in managing a horse and sulky. He denied culpability but the court awarded her £15 for her pain and suffering (Sydney Morning Herald: Friday 20th February 1920). It was better than nothing. His life is described elsewhere.
People mill about at Bondi Beach, circa 1890.
Joseph William and Nellie (née Garland) were Roman Catholic. They had eleven children over twenty-seven years and, perhaps surprisingly, they were only predeceased by one of them. All eleven lived and married in the greater Sydney area, where they created an extended family that seems to have kept in fairly close contact for a couple of generations. They established the Pynsent brand in New South Wales and their descendants are still there.
Joseph’s eldest child, Leila May Grace “Diddie” Pynsent married Joseph James White, in Ashfield, New South Wales, in 1907. She died in June 1924. The use of nicknames in this family is a nuisance as some are hard to attribute! Leila’s mother “Nellie” (née Garland) was probably baptized as Ellen but she married and lived her life as “Nellie”. Leila’s sister Elizabeth Mary Pynsent (who had a twin brother, Joseph Burton Pynsent) evidently married Percy Gordon, a van-driver in Erskineville in 1910. She died in 1938 and her passing is noted in an “In Memoriam” announcement posted in the Sydney Morning Herald on Monday 5th June 1939. It reads: “In Memoriam: PYNSENT: In loving memory of our dear mother, Nellie, died June 4, 1933; dear father, Joseph, died June 8 1926; also sister Bess, died February 27 1938. Inserted by Tom, Dorrie, Bon, Lil, Eddie, Bob”. Who “Bon” was is far from clear. Eddie and Bob were, presumably, Dorothy and Nellie’s husbands.
William Joseph’s second daughter Beatrice Pynsent married James A. Philips in Kiama, New South Wales, in 1914 and his third, Lily Florence Pynsent married Alfred Francis McGuiness, a packer, in Marrickville in 1919. William Joseph’s fourth daughter, Olive Gertrude Pynsent married Sydney J. Quill in Canterbury in 1923 and his fifth and youngest, Nellie Theresa Pynsent married Francis Ball in Canterbury in 1929. They all seem to have had children; however, they are not listed here. The various families are fairly well documented on line and it should be possible to trace at least some of their kin.
As for the four boys, we find some familiar names. Joseph William and Nellie named their eldest son Joseph Burton Pynsent. He married Ethel Maud Budd in 1917 and had two sons of his own. Following the same theme, Joseph and Nellie named their second son, Charles Pitt Pynsent. Charles married Margaret O’Donnell in Canterbury in 1931 and he too had at least one son. Joseph William’s third son was Alfred Francis Pynsent. Alfred married Elsie Florence Jefferies in 1922 in Canterbury and had several children including four boys. Joseph William’s youngest son by Nellie (née Garland) Thomas Ogden Pynsent married Lillian Mary May Clough in Canterbury in 1931. They had sons as well. Their lives are discussed elsewhere.
Joseph William “formerly of Bondi but lately of Marrickville, near Sydney, New south Wales, retired dairyman” died in June 1926. He was interred in the Catholic cemetery at Rookwood. His will, with a codicil attached, was probated in the “Supreme Court of New south Wales” (Sydney Morning Herald: Saturday 12th June 1926). His widow, Nellie (née Garland) died seven years later, in June 1933 (Findagrave-Australia).
Walker’s Dairy, via the City of Canterbury Library’s National Trust Heritage Festival 2010.
In 2010, Mrs. Nellie Theresa Ball (née Pynsent) provided the City of Canterbury Library with photographs and other information about her father, Joseph Pynsent, for an exhibition on local business ventures that was to be held in the Campsie Library. She was 100 years old at the time. Online sources show that she described how he “owned and operated dairies in the Canterbury district including “Great Britain”, “Dartmore” (sic) “Ivy Bridge” and (also) what was to become Walker’s Dairy.”
Pynsent advertises in the Evening News, 19 May 1893.
The family had not forgotten its Devonshire roots. In fact, an item in the Evening News (19th May 1893) shows that Joseph lived at “Chudleigh” on the Old South Head Road in Bondi. The dairy was known as “Pynsent’s Dairy” when it advertised for a dairyman in 1917 (Melbourne Argus: Tuesday 17th April 1917). Mrs. Ball goes on to say that her father purchased what would later become “Walker’s Dairy” (located on Page Street, off Northcote Street, in Canterbury) and other land in the neighbourhood in around 1907, which fits with the Electoral Rolls. He sold the dairy to Mr. Walker four years before he (Joseph) died. Sydney was fast encroaching and Mr. Walker sold some of the land for housing.
McDonell and Moffitt advertise for creditors to settle with Pynsent’s estate. Government Gazette of the State of New South Wales, 17 September 1926.
Joseph William Pynsent died in June 1926 leaving his estate in the hands of a solicitor, Mr. William Heath Moffitt, in Sydney (Government of the State of New South Wales Gazette: 17th May 1926).
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Joseph Burton Pinsent (later Pynsent) was the only surviving son of Joseph Pinsent by his second wife, Elizabeth Pinsent. He was born on his father’s farm in Devon and grew up there and in London, where his father was a “ships broker” – he arranged for the shipment of cargo. His mother died when he was three years old and Joseph Burton (or “Burton” as he was more commonly known) and his older sister Elizabeth Satterley Pinsent were brought up by his step-mother, his father’s third wife, Ann (née Tucker). They grew up with several half-siblings. Elizabeth Satterley married a merchant, William Francis Splatt, in 1840 and he and one of Elizabeth’s other half-brothers, Charles Pitt Pinsent (later Pynsent) – figure in Joseph Burton’s story. Mr. Splatt was a Devon man. He was born in Chudleigh, and he may have known the Pynsent family while it was living at Lettaford.
Etching of Bristol in the 1850s.
Joseph “Burton” Pinsent and William Francis Splatt went into business together as “corn factors” sometime in the early 1830s and they worked together in Bristol for several years. Their partnership was dissolved – by mutual consent – in January 1835 (London Gazette: 23rd January 1835).
The partners acquired a warehouse on the “Welsh Backs” – a section of the docks along the Avon River – and started to import grain and flour from Ireland. Their warehouse had a prime dockside location but it was old and only accessible by narrow streets that were poorly suited to the size of the wagons of the day. It did not help that their stretch of docks was near a well-known choke point, the Redcliffe Bridge.
Map of the Bristol docks as seen today.
In June 1839, Burton became so irate with one his neighbours for blocking Redcliffe Street for longer than he (himeslf) felt was necessary for him to unload and load cargo that he had him brought up before the magistrates on a charge in June 1839! The magistrates tactfully suggested that they should have settled their disagreement amicably … but as they had not, they gave Mr. Roger Moore, the offender, a token penalty of 1s and costs (Bristol Mercury: Saturday 29th June 1839).
Burton married Mary Ann Ogden Hassall, the daughter of a well established Bristol merchant, in Westbury-upon-Trym in 1836, and they had a son, Thomas Ogden Pynsent, in 1839. Mr. Splatt, meanwhile, married Burton’s sister Elizabeth Satterley Pinsent in 1840 and the two of them went out to Australia shortly afterwards. He made a fortune running sheep in Victoria.
Advertising the rental of Higher and Lower Lettaford in the Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, June 29, 1839.
Burton sold cider as a sideline while his father still lived, (Exeter and Plymouth Gazette: Saturday 21st May 1836). It probably came from the family’s farm at Lettaford in North Bovey. However, Burton seems to have had no desire to take over the farm after his father died. He set about selling-off the freehold in 1837 (Western Times: Saturday 19th August 1837). It did not sell so Burton, and Joseph’s widow Ann (née Tucker), “Advertised Higher and Lower Lettaford” for lease in June 1839 (Exeter and Plymouth Gazette: Saturday 29th June 1839). They manage to sell at least some of the land eventually; however, Burton’s half-sister, Mary Anna Pynsent was living at Lettaford when she died in 1875 – so the family seems to have retained the principal residence.
Higher Lettaford as seen today.
The Bristol Mercury reports that, had the collapse happened later in the day, people may have been killed. Bristol Mercury, April 4, 1840.
Burton imported wheat, oats and other grain from Ireland(Robson’s Directory: 1839) and seems to have done fairly well for himself, at least until he made the mistake of placing 1,500 bushels of grain on one of the upper floors of his four-story brick warehouse – and collapsing the whole building. It went down early in the morning of 2nd April 1840! Fortunately, no one was hurt. The building had rotten beams and the sides caved and the front came down as the sacks of grain slipped forward (Bristol Mercury: Saturday 4th April 1840). Joseph Burton’s sister, Elizabeth Satterley Pinsent had married Mr. Splatt just a few weeks later (Bristol Times and Mirror: Saturday 23rd May 1840). He must have been relieved that he was, by then, no longer a partner!
The warehouse was rebuilt and it remained Burton’s base of operation throughout the 1840s. Burton’s choice of clerk left something to be desired, though. John Taylor was charged at “Bristol Quarter Sessions” in 1841 with embezzling £18 8s from one customer and £23 from another. There was some confusion over who had made an entry in the account book and, when- and the prosecuting lawyer gave contradicting evidence. Mr. Taylor was acquitted (Bristol Mercury: Saturday 17th April 1841).
B. Pinsent comes clean in the Bristol Mercury, February 19, 1842.
Burton also seems have got into a muddle with the law the following year. He hired James Treble to bottle a quarter cask of wine and (perhaps unsurprisingly) discovered him drunk! Burton charged him with stealing three bottles of wine. He denied the charge and when Burton was brought before the Magistrates he admitted it was unfounded, and that he had made it in a fit of pique. He had the decency to retract the charge (Bristol Mercury: Saturday 19th February 1842).
B. Pinsent’s shipping tracked in the local newspaper. Bristol Mercury, November 2, 1839.
In the early 1800s, nearly all the Bristol newspapers reported on movement of ship in the Avon and described the imports off-loaded in its docks. The shipping news provides a pretty clear picture of Burton’s activities as a “corn factor”. For instance: “Bristol Imports: In the Queen, from Cork: B. Pinsent, 50 brls (barrels) oats, 54 bags pollard; In the Victory, from Cork: B. Pinsent 50 sacks oats, 47 sacks pollard; In the City of Bristol, from Waterford; 100 sacks oats (Bristol Mercury: Friday 2nd November 1839) and similarly “Bristol, Foreign and Irish Imports: … In the City of Bristol, … Burton Pinsent, 50 brls barley … In the Queen, Moriarty, from Cork: … Burton Pinsent, 54 bags pollards and coarse flour … In the Nora Creina, Mortimer, from Waterford: … Burton Pinsent, 50 brls barley … In the Thomas and Ann, Murray, from Waterford: Burton Pinsent, 95 brls best white oats” (Bristol Times and Mirror: Saturday 7th December 1839).
There would be several ships from Ireland and elsewhere coming into Bristol daily bringing goods for the the local merchants and distributors. Some of the grain may have been for human consumption; however, much of it – including some of the oats and the “pollard” (a by-product of the grain milling process) must have been animal feed. There were almost as many horses to feed as humans in those days. Note that, the “Times and Mirror” gives the name of the ship’s captain as well as that of the ship and the same ships seem to have plied the same routes and many made regular deliveries. Burton was receiving several shipments a month in the early 1840s.
Burton rarely handled outgoing ships; however we find:“For Port Philip and Sydney, New South Wales: The fine, fast-sailing ship, Thomas Hughes, A-1 at Lloyds, 500 tons burthen, Thomas Butler Commander, will be dispatched from Liverpool early in July. The Thomas Hughes will be supplied with abundance of provisions of the best quality, and with everything necessary for the comfort and conveniences of the passengers. For freight or passage, apply to Burton Pinsent, 13, Welsh Back, Bristol” (Bristol Mercury: Saturday 25th June 1842).
Advertising the sale of the dwelling-house in the Bristol Mercury, July 16, 1842.
Burton and Mary Ann seem to have lived at a house called “Smarts” in Portishead, near Bristol in the 1840s. It was said to have “two gardens, orchard, barton, barn stable and other out-buildings adjoining, the whole containing one acre and a half, or thereabouts” They had a lease on the property that was to expire in March 1848, so they were sitting tenants when the freehold was sold at auction in 1842 (Bristol Mercury: Saturday 16th July 1842).
Burton was one of several “corn and flour factors” called upon to act as trustees for Mary and John Simpkin, “bakers of Bristol,” who had, presumably, applied for bankruptcy in April 1843 (Bristol Mercury: Saturday 1st April 1843). Times were tough and Burton had his own financial troubles. He had his first bout of insolvency later that same year. He was obliged to assigned all his property to Benjamin Ogden, Valentine Hellican and Alfred Robinson as trustees for the payment of his creditors (Bristol Times and Mirror: Saturday 3rd June 1843). Benjamin Ogden was his wife’s uncle, which kept the business in the family and he was able to recover it.
It seems likely that his financial troubles, at least in part, related to dealings within his own family. Burton corresponded with his brother-in-law and erstwhile partner, William Francis Splatt, and through him he conducted business in Melbourne. Letters transcribed in “The Historical Records of Australia (Series I Vol. XXIII)” show that in September 1842 Burton had a heated correspondence with Lord Stanley and other Colonial Office officials over losses he incurred as a result of the reputed negligence of the Post Master at Port Philip (Melbourne). Burton wrote to Lord Stanly complaining that: “I have scarce a letter comes the regular way. Within the last year, I have had two instances of original letters and their duplicates (although directed one direct – and the other via Sydney) yet have been sent by the Post Office Authorities through the same conveyance. One of these sets of letters had a remittance to a considerable amount, and the interest alone (which would have been saved, had one letter been forwarded as directed) was considerable, and the disappointment in not receiving at the time was of great injury to me. I also received a letter last week, which had been posted at Melbourne, and yet 15 months on the way. I have now a lot of wool on board a vessel that I cannot get, which I am satisfied is owing to the Post Office not having forwarded the letter containing the necessary document.”
Burton’s insolvency had repercussions. Mr. Rees Williams, a provisions dealer in Bristol who had gone through bankruptcy in 1842, had borrowed £200 from the Charity Trustees to reestablish himself. In so doing, he had called on Burton Pinsent, Henry Stephens and Thomas Dix to act as sureties for the loan. When Burton also became insolvent he was forced to find a replacement and he called on a Mr. Robinson (Bristol Mercury: Saturday 28th February 1844).
Burton’s brother-in-law (Mr. Splatt) owned a sheep run in Victoria and Burton seems have been bringing his wool into the country through London. His father had been a Guild Member and shipping agent there, and Burton’s name is to be found on long list of merchants that are said to have imported wool through the City of London in 1842 (Sydney Morning Herald: Saturday 12th August 1843). English merchants living abroad routinely sent several copies of letters by different routes to reduce the chance of correspondence going astray. In this case, the system had broken down as the postmaster sent them all as a bundle on one ship! Added to which, one letter that took 15 months to arrive from Melbourne should have gone to Bombay for overland transfer from there, but instead, made its way slowly round by sea.
How Burton’s insolvency was resolved is not recorded but he was back in business importing grain from Ireland by July 1844. The amount of grain he imported increased throughout the 1840s and he diversified by bringing in special deliveries (hams, cheeses, peas, beans, canary seed, vetches, etc.) from Europe and from other small ports around the coast of England: “Bristol, Foreign and Irish Imports: … In the Samuel, Murphy, from Waterford: … B. Pinsent 340 brls prime black oats … In the Rose: Burgess, from Waterford: … B. Pinsent, 100 brls black oats … In the Alida, Harding, from Rotterdam: … B. Pinsent, 106 qrs 7 bush beans, 40 mats, 630 Edam cheese, 200 Gouda cheese, 15 bales hemp seed …” (Bristol Times and Mirror: Saturday 7th April 1849) and also: “Bristol, Foreign and Irish Imports: … In the Cultivateur, Durand, from Nantes: B. Pinsent, 1474 hectolitres barley … In the Twins, Cooper, from Youghal: B. Pinsent, 921 brls black oats … In the Jessie Amelia, Maxwell, from Riga: B. Pinsent, 1809 chetwerts white oats, 2020 mats … In the Kierstine, Bay, from Copenhagen: F. Adams, 800 qrs barely, B. Pinsent, 200 qrs barley” (Bristol Times and Mirror: Saturday 11th August 1849). Two hundred quarters of barley was 50 hundredweight in old, non-metric, measure and one “chetwort” in Russian measurement would be equivalent to 5 ¾ imperial bushels. Why beans were sold in mats, I do not know!
The 1840s seem to have been particularly difficult years, and there was considerable social distress caused by widespread lack of employment and poverty. There was a riot in Bristol in June 1844 that involved the public, police and members of the 41st Regiment. Anthony Chapman, who had worked for Burton for four years, was later charged with throwing a stone at the police. Two of his friends, who had been with him at the riot, claimed he was innocent and Burton gave him a good reference. Nevertheless, the magistrates found him guilty and sentenced him to a fine of £3 or one month with hard labour. The sentence did not go down well. There were murmurs and hissing in court (Bristol Mercury: Saturday 22nd June 1844).
Like most businesses, Burton’s home and premises were targets for miscreants. For instance, two youths, Charles Cooke and James Butler, were brought up at Bristol Police Court in October 1844 charged with “intent to commit a felony”. They were sent to the house of correction for a month (Bristol Times and Mirror: Saturday 12th October 1844). Also, some time later, James Hewlett was charged at Bristol Police Court with stealing a ferret that Burton kept in this yard with his fowls and horses. Whether Joseph used the ferret to catch rabbits or to deter vermin in his yard, I do not know. Burton had employed James to look after the yard and, although he protested that someone else must have taken it, the magistrates learnt that he had sold a ferret just like it for half a crown! They were not impressed, and gave him a fine as well as three weeks hard labour (Bristol Times and Mirror: Saturday 24th January 1846).
Burton was back in Court in August 1846 for the for the Midsummer Quarter Sessions. This time he was a material witness in a case where a Mr. John Vincen was plaintiff and Messrs. James and Samuel Lorymer were defendants. Mr. Vincen’s trustees where trying to recover £23 12s 5d from the Lorymers’ for distribution to Mr. Vincen’s creditors. The defendants claimed that Burton Pinsent had drawn a bill (of credit) on Vincen of £37 12s 6d and then had endorsed it over to them as part of another transaction. They had off-set it against their debt. The issue was whether that transaction occurred before or after Mr. Vincen’s bankruptcy: if after, it would defraud his other creditors! After a long trial, the jury decided it was not a legal transfer (Bristol Mercury: Saturday 1st August 1846).
Meanwhile Burton’s business continued apace, although not without the occasional incident. One of his horses backed up unexpectedly while waiting with a wagon to be loaded on 20th August 1846, and both the horse and the wagon fell off the dock and landed up in the water! There was no harm done (Bristol Mercury: Saturday 15th August 1846). What the wagon was waiting for, I am not sure. Burton seems to have been importing more peas and beans and less grain around this time. Perhaps, this was because of the looming agricultural crisis in Ireland.
The Mayor of Bristol responded to reports of a major famine in Ireland and the Highlands and Islands of Scotland caused by the near total collapse of the potato crop in January 1847. He called for donations and Burton was one of many who responded. He gave £5 0s 0d (Bristol Times and Mirror: Saturday 16th January 1847). This does not seem like much for someone who made his living by importing Irish corn. A few months later, he donated £2 2s to an appeal on behalf of the Bristol General Hospital (Bristol Mercury: Saturday 3rd April 1847).
Business seems to have been better towards the end of the 1840s; so much so, in fact, that the City of Bristol Council imposed an import tax on grain coming into the City. Burton (among others) objected and the council later published a list of merchants and their arrears up to the 5th of December 1849. Burton was liable for £12 2s 1d for imported corn (Bristol Times and Mirror: Saturday 8th December 1849).
Burton continued to import oats, barley and other items from Ireland (and, occasionally, elsewhere) into the early 1850s and they were still stored near the quay on the “Welsh Backs.” It was a busy anchorages and, in January 1852, a French vessel with a consignment of his wheat had its cable cut and was set adrift by a Welsh trader who claimed he had priority over the dock in front of Joseph’s warehouse. Joseph sought the opinion of the Magistrates who felt that the Frenchman had every right to be there – but it was really up to the harbour master or quay warden to assign berths (Bristol Mercury: Saturday 17th January 1852).
Perhaps the red tape and inconvenience of operating a shipping business in a cramped setting was getting to be too much for Burton, particularly when he heard about the wide-open spaces and the opportunities afforded his relations in Australia. Mr. Splatt was a wealthy sheep runner and merchant in Melbourne and, by then, a respected member of the Legislative Assembly. Joseph’s half brother Charles Pitt Pynsent was busy managing Mr. Splatt’s sheep runs. Part of the Mr. Spratt’s family intended to emigrate in 1850 and they took the “S.S. Orion” up to Glasgow to board a ship for Melbourne. Unfortunately, all but one of them, Mr. John Splatt, drowned when the “S.S. Orion” sank off Scotland taking £700 worth of the family’s gold with it (Bristol Times and Mirror: Saturday 22nd June 1850).
Burton would have known of the discovery of gold at Ballarat, in Victoria State, in August 1851, as his half-brother (Charles Pitt Pynsent) and his brother-in-law (William Francis Splatt) would have told him. The gold rush was well underway by 1852 and Burton must have realized that it presented an opportunity for a merchant who was capable of brokering, organizing and handling overseas shipments. He decided leave Bristol and join his relatives in Melbourne, and make his fortune servicing the men out in “the diggings.”
Burton Pinsent’s letter from the Great Britain makes the Bristol Mercury, November 20, 1852.
Burton set sail for Australia on the “S.S. Great Britain” in November 1852. The ship, had been designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and it was the largest iron-hulled, screw propelled, passenger ship ever to have been built when it was first launched, in 1846. It had recently been through a refit and this was to be the first of what were to be many runs carrying emigrants out to Australia.
Burton took his son, Thomas Ogden Pinsent (aged 13) with him but left his wife Mary Ann Ogden Pinsent at home in Bristol. It was an exciting trip for Burton and “Tom” and he arranged for his letters home to be published in the Bristol Mercury. He described their initial satisfaction with the ship and talked about their fellow passengers; he voices their disappointment that, at one point in the journey, the ship had to backtrack to St. Helena (Saturday 27th November 1852). It is not clear why. Perhaps they were using more coal than expected. It was, after all, a steam ship. In a letter written while coaling up at the Cape of Good Hope, Burton displays the then all too normal patriotic prejudice of the English … pity about the Dutch … and he casts a merchant’s eye over the quality and price of local products. At least one could get a decent cup of tea while ashore … (Saturday 18th December 1852). If you are wondering what it must have been like aboard, you can check it out for yourself. The ship is now a museum in Bristol.
Advertising the clipper brigantine INO in the Bristol Mercury, September 24, 1853.
On his arrival in Melbourne, Burton went into partnership with Mr. Henry Player, another ex-patriot Briton from Bristol, and established the firm of “B. Pinsent & Co.” with its base in Melbourne and a branch at “the Diggings.” They placed an advertisement in the Bristol Mercury to that effect and offered to act as a broker for “any goods their friends may assign to them” (Bristol Mercury: 9th July 1853). Later the same year, Burton wrote to his friends in Bristol that “Burton Pinsent and Co.” had engaged Elias George Hall of Bristol as their agent and they had chartered the fast-sailing clipper brigantine INO to sail from Bristol about the first week in October (Bristol Mercury: Saturday 24th September 1853). Those letters he had sent home while on board ship had probably been part of a well thought out advertising campaign!
A digression: Joseph Burton Pinsent’s father Joseph had been mildly obsessed by the story of Sir William Pynsent and his bequest of two large estates in Wiltshire (Urchfont) and Somerset (Burton) to William Pitt (later Earl of Chatham). The names Joseph Burton and Charles Pitt speak for themselves. Joseph’s nephew Thomas Pinsent picked up on his uncle’s obsession and, when he married in 1843, he decided that from hence forth he would be known as “Thomas Pynsent”. The baronet’s line had expired and Thomas had no children but he persuaded several of his cousins (including Joseph Burton and Charles Pitt) to make the change. Burton did so on his arrival in Australia.
Charles Pitt Pynsent had run sheep with his brother-in-law, (William Francis Splatt) for several years and would have been well known in Melbourne. In fact, he had married Georgiana Helen Ball, in St. Kilda, near Melbourne in September 1852 – a few months before Burton and Tom arrived. It would have been easier for Burton change his name from Pinsent to Pynsent than to explain the difference!
Burton Pynsent advertises in The Banner. Apparently arsenic has many uses. The Banner, December 9, 1853.
Burton had his business up and running by February 1853 and we find him advertising for sale “50 firkins of butter, 100 sacks of oats 4 cases of chocolate and 60 dozen bottled beer, I case of shoes and boots” and other items that had recently arrived on the Kyle (Geelong Advertiser and Intelligencer: Friday 25th February 1853). He knew the shipping business and advertised a variety of different goods over the following months. The only major difference between his old life and his new one, was that the wheat and oats were now brought in with all that one could possibly need for a country-store in the outback: for instance: “Now landing: Salmon in cask, biscuits in tins, pickles, bottled fruits, wills, lard, Van Diemen’s land flour, Adelaide potatoes and onions: Burton Pynsent, 205 Elizabeth Street: … also … Now Landing, Cutlery, Stakes, dials, twine, sacks, trucks spring scales, beer engine, netting, hammocks, account books, pencils, iron safe, bottled cider and champagne: Burton Pynsent, 205 Elizabeth Street: … also … Now Landing: … stoneware, corks, saddles, harness clothing millinery guns, pistols, percussion caps, cavalry swords, thermometers, telescopes, opera glasses and earth boring machine: Burton Pynsent, 205 Elizabeth Street:” (The Melbourne Argus: Monday 6th March 1854).
Other items followed, including “five hundred cases and twenty hogsheads of brandy” on Saturday 23rd of September 1854 and “five thousand dozen bottles of Porter and Ale” on the Friday 29th September 1854 (The Melbourne Argus). Digging was thirsty work.
Map of Melbourne and its environs in 1866.
The partners worked out of a Blue Stone, two-story, store at #44 Elizabeth Street “a little beyond Passmore’s Hotel”. Whether they bought it, or it was already in the family I am not sure. Apparently, Mr. Splatt had letters addressed there. Either way, the two partners must have felt that it was too small as they put it up for sale in September 1853 (The Melbourne Argus: Monday 12th September 1853). They reopened the business at #205 Elizabeth Street later the same month (The Melbourne Argus: Tuesday 27th September 1853). Burton purchased the Elizabeth Street property on a mortgage and Mr. Splatt, his brother-in-law (who was unquestionably a wealthy man) included in a will he wrote in 1856, a bequest of four thousand pounds to help him pay it down. As it turned out, Mr. Splatt outlived Burton by many years and the bequest was never made – although Burton could have used it. He was, eventually, forced into bankruptcy. Nevertheless, the future looked bright for Burton in those days. He was well established and on the electoral role for the City of Melbourne by 1856.
Heape Court in Melbourne as photographed today.
The partners drew up plans for a new warehouse and put its construction out to tender through an advertisement in the Melbourne Argus (Thursday 28th April 1853). The building still exists as a rare survival of a gold-rush era brick warehouse (Wikipedia). It is at the rear of #361/365 Little Lonsdale Street in what is now known as “Heape Court.” Melbourne was growing rapidly and Burton saw a need for imported building materials. In May 1854, he went looking for land to rent or purchase to store them (Melbourne Argus: Friday 5th May 1854). Presumably they found somewhere suitable as they advertised timber for sale a few days later (Melbourne Argus: Thursday 22nd June 1854). The firm was very clearly still in expansion mode.
At some point, Burton set up a sales outlet near the gold-fields at Geelong but how successful it was is uncertain. He put the “whole of his stock-in-trade” there, consisting of food and “the usual items (to be found) in a general store” up for auction in July 1854 (Geelong Advertiser and Intelligencer: Monday 24th July 1854). Still, he must have maintained a foothold there as he advertised for a young man with experience in the grocery trade to work in a General Store at “the diggings” in March 1855 (The Melbourne Argus: Tuesday 27th March 1855). The following year, he was looking for a young man for the diggings store who “understands a horse” (The Melbourne Argus: Tuesday 18th November 1856).
Conditions in Melbourne were pretty rudimentary at the time and it must have been difficult to get and keep reliable staff. In October 1854, Burton became embroiled in an insolvency case involving two of his employees who had also been dealing for themselves. They appear to have bought £272 worth of boots from the an insolvent trader, a Mr. Davies, and it was not clear whether they had done so on Burton’s behalf and with his knowledge, or not. Mr. Davies’s trustees eventually took the boots back (The Melbourne Age: Monday 9th October 1854).
The Argus catalogues what was stolen. The Argus, January 22, 1855.
Burton realized that there was good money to be made as a wholesale “Spirit Merchant” and he paid the State fee necessary for a license to sell liquor from December 1854 to August 1855 (Victoria Police Gazette: August 24th 1855). Unfortunately, this made him a target and his store on Elizabeth Street was “burglariously entered”in January 1855. It was another setback. The miscreants stole a safe containing cash, bills of exchange drawn on several Australian banks, insurance policies and other papers, including the certificates of ownership of 400 cases of brandy held by another merchant, one hogshead of brandy of his own and also certificates for four hogsheads of “Old Tom”. The safe contained several bills that Burton had drawn – including three from “Hassell and Parkin” to the value of approximately £460 – on the Bank of New South Wales. Presumably the Hassall in question was one of his wife’s relatives. The papers were immediately cancelled and a reward of £20 was offered for the recovery of the safe or for the conviction of those responsible (Victoria Police Gazette: Friday January 26th 1855; Melbourne Argus: 22nd January 1855). How much, if any was covered by insurance I do not know.
Burton’s business continued on regardless: He continued to advertise in the local papers. This was often in the form of “On Sale: Cork, Butter, Liverpool Soap, Westphalia Hams, Adelaide Flour, at Burton Pynsent’s 205 Elizabeth Street” but it occasionally included the name or origin of the incoming ship. On another occasion we find: “Chilian Flour: two hundred tons at Burton Pynsent, 205 Elizabeth Street” (Melbourne Argus: Saturday 10th May 1856).
The Ballarat gold rush was starting to run out of steam in the mid-1850s and the local papers frequently refer to court cases between merchants and their suppliers, as both were then coming under financial pressure. Many of the cases were just listed by surname (e.g. “Hewitson v. Pynsent”: Melbourne Argus: Thursday 12th April 1855; “Pynsent v. Chandler”: Melbourne Argus: Wednesday 9th April 1856 etc.). What those cases were about, I am not sure.
However, Joseph Burton is specifically mentioned in the case of “McCullock v. Hassell” which made its way to the Supreme Court in August 1856. James McCullock claimed that Burton, the shipping agent for the Nora Creina, had approached him in 1855 to obtain credit for the purchase of flour in Valparaiso. Mr. McCullock said that he also discussed the matter with the ship’s captain, Thomas Ogden Hassall (who was (presumably) one of Mary Ann Ogden Pynsent (née Hassall’s) brothers) and he had assured him of prompt repayment. The credit was granted and, after Mr. Hassall purchased the flour he signed a receipt for the transaction. The Nora Creina brought the flour into Melbourne in May 1856 (see above). The essence of the case was that Captain Hassall had verbally promised Mr. McCullock that he would pay back the money but he now seemed either unwilling or unable to do so. Mr. Hassall’s lawyer argued that: “it was really the debt of Mr. Burton Pynsent. The captain had foolishly promised to pay it.” When His Honour asked the jury if they thought the captain was liable, they answered that “they considered him liable for the sums he had receipted for” (Melbourne Age: Wednesday 6th August 1856). Presumably the deal was sorted out amicably enough as Captain Hassall brought in another load from Valparaiso the following October (Melbourne Argus: Wednesday 29th October 1856). Who Nora Creina actually was, I do not know but she was likely linked to the Hassalls as another ship of the same name routinely brought grain into Bristol from Ireland in the 1830s (see above).
In another case, it was probably Burton who was sued by a Mr. Meldrum over a consignment of flour that should have been taken from Mr. Dight’s mill (wherever that was) to Wangaratta, an inland community. It never arrived. Both the gentleman contracted to transport the flour and the flour itself vanished without trace (Melbourne Argus: Thursday 30th October 1856). By then, Joseph’s half-brother, Charles Pitt Pynsent and his brother-in-law, William Francis Splatt, were both back in England. They dissolved their partnership – running sheep at “Wonwondah” and “Lexington” in Victoria – in June 1856. The former had his signature witnessed by his cousin, Thomas Pynsent in Weston-super-Mare, and the latter by the Reverend G. R. Harding, at Gittisham, in Devon. Burton was on his own.
Burton may have become increasingly worried about the state of business at “the diggings” and in September 1858 as he took the unusual step of actively promoting the area. He sent the following letter to the Editor of the Melbourne Argus: Devil’s River Diggings: “Dear Sir, As so many diggers are returning from Port Curtis, undetermined where next to direct their steps, perhaps you may consider it worth while inserting a paragraph in your paper to the effect that there are good payable diggings on the Devil’s River. There are at present about 200 at work on the Dry Creek and Hell’s Hole, who are all getting at least a living. The principal part of the population have been there some months. A party of five, known as Johnson’s, washed out on Saturday week 15 oz, and Gall’s party is averaging 30s. per. man per day. There is plenty of water and nothing but sluicing has yet been tried. My information is undeniable, and is from a storekeeper who has been sending me about 40 oz. gold weekly. The gold is very like that obtained at the Ovens’, and has been selling at Beechworth as Ovens gold. The way from Melbourne is up the Sydney road to Longwood, over the Big Hill, and through Merton into the diggings; or from Beechworth down the Sydney road to Benalla, then turn off past McKellars and Moore’s stations. I cannot say I am uninterested, on the contrary, I am interested in the development of these diggings, and consider by making them more public I shall be conferring a benefit on many who do not now know where to turn for a livelihood. Should any further, information be required, I shall be happy to furnish it. I am, Sir, your obedient servant: B. PYNSENT: 205 Elizabeth-street, Melbourne 19th October” (Melbourne Argus: Wednesday 20th October 1858).
Burton Pynsent announces insolvency. The Argus, October 18, 1859.
It was all to no avail: Burton resigned from a partnership agreement he had carrying out business at Forest Creek with Mr. John Arthur Parkin – probably the gentleman who had partnered with Mr. Hassall when Burton first set up shop in Melbourne: see above – and declared bankruptcy at the Insolvency Court a few days later (Melbourne Argus: Wednesday 5th October 1859). He had liabilities of £15,596 10s 7d and assets of £4,214 17s 9d (Melbourne Argus: Tuesday 18th October 1859). A week later Burton’s store on Elizabeth Street was put up for sale and an official assignee was appointed in December (The Melbourne Age: Tuesday 20th December 1859).
Burton stayed on in Melbourne after his bankruptcy and set up shop as a “Clothier and Outfitter” based at #84 Collins Street (Melbourne Directory: 1861). He had learnt the power of advertising and the needs of the traveling public: “GREAT BRITAIN, for Liverpool: – Passengers supplied with complete OUTFITS, by Burton Pynsent, 84 Collins-street west” (Melbourne Argus: Saturday 20th October 1860). Burton lived in Melbourne but he placed an advertisement for “a cheap cottage, with garden, (near sea preferred)” to rent in February 1861 (Melbourne Argus: Saturday 23rd February 1861). It was probably for his “wife” and family and a “Female General Servant” for his family that he advertised for in September 1861 (Melbourne Argus: Friday 20th September 1861). Presumably he thought his finances would support one.
Why Burton sent his young son, Thomas Ogden Pinsent, down to Hobart, in Tasmania, in 1853 (shortly after they arrived in Melbourne) I am not sure. He left on the “S.S. Clarence” with a large number of other passengers (The Hobart Courier: Friday 17th June 1853) and returned some time later. The only family connection to Tasmania that I know about came through Charles Pitt Pynsent’s wife, Georgina Hellen (nee Ball). She came from there but married Charles in Melbourne. In the years that followed, both Burton and Tom took occasional trips to Hobart and up to Sydney in New South Wales.
Tom dies intestate. The Brisbane Courier, March 6, 1869.
I know very little about Thomas Ogden Pynsent, or “Tom” as he was known in the family. I assume he worked with his father in the store in Melbourne; however, he seems to have spent time in New South Wales before dying of consumption (tuberculosis) in Queensland in September 1864 (Melbourne Argus: Saturday 24th September 1864). The Queensland Postal Authorities advertised that they had letters in their possession for “T. O. Pynsent of Port Denison” in January, and again in April 1864 (Queensland Unclaimed Letters: 1859 – 1874). Thomas never married and he died intestate. His father applied for “Letters of Administration” that were granted in the “Supreme Court of Queensland” in March 1869 (Brisbane Courier: Saturday 6th March 1869). He had goods sworn at under £50. The “letters” were to be refilled in the “Prerogative Court of Canterbury”, in England, in February 1878 (PCC Will and Administration Summaries: 1858-1947). There, they were granted “to the use of Mary Ann Theresa Pynsent (otherwise Fogarty, spinster), the surviving executrix of the will of Joseph Burton Pynsent, otherwise Burton Pynsent”. She was Joseph Burton’s eldest daughter by his second “wife” Bridget Mary Fogarty.
Advertising for the auction appears in the Bristol Mercury, October 18, 1856.
For some reason, Burton’s wife, Mary Ann Ogden (née Hassall) stayed on in Bristol when her husband and son went out to Australia in 1852. I can see why she might have stayed home for a year or two, while her husband got established and she wound up their affairs in England; however, she held off until the autumn of 1856. The newspapers tell us that: “all the remaining portion of the truly good and valuable household furniture, china, glass, etc., … and other miscellaneous effects of Mrs. Pinsent, leaving England for Australia” were put up for auction at the family home at Melbourne Cottage in Westbury upon Trym in October, 1856 (Bristol Mercury: Saturday 18th October 1856). The implication is that she went out to Melbourne to join her family; however, I can find no evidence that she ever did, and she probably had no intention of doing so. Her husband had, by then, entered into a common-law relationship with Mary Bridget Fogarty. What happened to Mary Ann is anyone’s guess.
Burton Pynsent is summoned to St. Kilda Police Court. Leader, August 2, 1862.
The details of Burton’s relationship with Bridget became public when she summoned him to appear in St. Kilda Police court to show cause why he should not provide child support for their illegitimate children (Melbourne Argus: 30th July 1862). She claimed that she had arrived in Melbourne in 1855 (at age 23) and taken employment with Mr. Pynsent, and that within a month they had entered into a common-law relationship. She had had six children by him – although two had since died. She said that she lived in a cottage in St. Kilda and that Burton had, until recently, given her £2 a week for the children’s maintenance. Burton did not deny paternity. However, he explained that he could no longer give her the money as he had recently been declared insolvent and his present business only generated a profit of £1 per week. Burton admitted that he did occasionally receive remittances from England (probably from his half-brother Charles Pitt Pynsent and/or his sister Elizabeth, who was the wife of Mr. William Francis Spratt).
The couple were living apart at the time, and the magistrates ordered that Burton take charge of his eldest child and pay Bridget 30s a week to look after the other three – at least for the next six months – after which she could, if necessary, reapply to the magistrates. The Melbourne Age (Wednesday 30th July 1862) notes that an alternative arrangement had been discussed and rejected. It would have had Burton looking after the two eldest children and contributing 20s a week for the maintenance of the younger ones.
Burton’s financial problems continued and he appears to have given up his clothing business and moved to St. Kilda (on the outskirts of Melbourne) and rejoined his family. His sons Charles Pynsent and Alfred Thomas Pynsent were born there in 1865, and 1869 respectively. The Victoria State Archives contain records of civil cases heard before the “Supreme Court” in the 1860s that show that Burton was sued by Henry Steel Shaw in 1865 and by the “Bank of Australasia” in 1866. Three years later, he was back fighting an action by James Aitken. I do not know the details of these cases, but they were probably for non-payment of bills.
The family lived on Carlisle Street in 1867 (Melbourne Directory: 1867). In March that year, while he was staying at the “Botanical Hotel” in South Yarra, Burton got into an argument with a resident, Mr. Mardon. Mr. Mardon had been drinking and become aggressive and they got into a fight during which Burton (who was over sixty years old by then) was hit on the head, knocked over, and had his throat grabbed. Burton claimed that he had been left in charge of the hotel, but the plaintiff (and the magistrates) felt that he was needlessly interfering with Mr. Mardon, who was just returning to his room to collect some clothes. They concluded that Burton had brought the fight on himself. Mr. Mardon was fined a token 5s or 24 hours imprisonment (The Telegraph, St. Kilda, Prahran, and South Yarra Guardian: Saturday 30th March 1867).
Burton and Bridget were later to set up a small dairy farm on Acland Street, in St. Kilda, near the coast to the south of Albert Park. Perhaps Burton fondly remembered his father’s small dairy farm at Gorway, in East Teignmouth. At any rate, Burton, with the help of his family, kept cows and pigs and was fined 4s in August 1866 for allowing two of the latter to wander around St. Kilda unattended (The Telegraph, St. Kilda, Prahran and South Yarra Guardian: Saturday 25th August 1866).
In 1869, Burton’s family washing stolen while it was hanging out to dry – which must have been embarrassing! The Victorian Police Gazette (January 21st 1869) dutifully reports that “2 new long white flannel chemises, 2 pairs of white flannel drawers, one of them patched on the seat; 2 nearly new flannel petticoats, a printed muslin dress lined round the waist with brown holland, 2 white calico nightgowns with frills, 2 pairs of white calico drawers, 2 girls’ calico chemises, a large linen table-cover, and about 6 bath towels” were stolen from his yard on Carlisle Street in East St. Kilda on 12th January. Money must have been tight around then and the washing may have been missed as Burton was forced to put “one white cow, in milk” up for auction a couple of months later (Melbourne Argus: Tuesday 22nd March 1869). Nevertheless, with his family’s help he managed to stay in business.
In December 1872, on of Burton’s younger sons, Joseph William Pynsent, deposed that on one occasion when he delivered milk to Mr. MacGregor’s house he had seen a servant (Maria Davenish) in the kitchen looking very ill. She had asked him where she could find a doctor and he had told her. Other witnesses deposed to finding the body of an infant and Maria was charged with infanticide. She admitted she had had the child but claimed that it had died from a fall shortly after birth. There was no evidence to the contrary, so she was acquitted (The Melbourne Argus: Saturday 21st December 1872). Joseph William’s life is discussed elsewhere.
Joseph Burton Pynsent died at his home on Acland Street in West St. Kilda in March 1874, leaving his common-law wife (and former house-keeper) Bridget Fogarty and his under-age daughter Mary Ann Theresa Pynsent to process his last Will and Testament. The probate records, which are in the Public Records Office, in Victoria show that he was all but destitute. He had no real estate and his personal estate – his clothes and a silver watch – were valued at £5. After deducting his medical expenses he was overdrawn by £10.
Bridget Fogarty died in March in the following year (Melbourne Argus: Wednesday 17th March 1875) and her children, who were teenagers or younger, were left to fend for themselves and look after the, presumable a lease-hold, farm. Burton had appointed his eldest daughter, Mary Ann Theresa Pynsent (“otherwise Fogarty, spinster”) as one of his executrices but she was under age and unable to apply to the Court for administration until 1879. When she did, she confirmed what her mother had said previously. At the same time, Mary Ann Theresa arranged for a solicitor in Bristol to process her father’s Will in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury – presumably on the off-chance that he might have left assets in England. At the same time, she sought administration for anything that might have belonged to her late half-brother (Thomas Ogden Pynsent “late of Bowen, in Queensland”) estate. He had died in 1864. Whether she derived any benefit from the exercise, I do not know.
Mary Ann Theresa Pynsent (“Teresa”) was now nominally responsible for the farm and she, not infrequently, found herself in front of the magistrates at St. Kilda’s Court trying to explaining why her cows had been allowed to wander on to common property: “Mary F. Richardson was fined 5s for allowing three cows to wander in the public streets, and Teresa Pynsent was fined double that amount for allowing eight of her lactine tribe to exercise their freedom as they pleased” and “John Hayes, Catherine Egan, Eliz. Conroy, and Teresa Pynsent were summoned for allowing their cows to wander about the borough unprotected. In the Case of Pynsent, the cows had got into the enclosures on the Esplanade, and did considerable damage. They were variously fined from 5s to 20s”. Theresa was also dinged 20s and 12s 6d in costs for allowing five of her cows to wander in the public streets the following April (The Telegraph, St. Kilda, Prahran and South Yarra Guardian: Saturday 9th October 1875, Saturday 4th December 1875 and Saturday 15th April 1876).
Clearly, grazing was an ongoing issue. In 1878, Theresa’s brother Joseph (although still only a teenager) wrote to the St. Kilda Municipal Council offering to pay £60 per annum for the right to graze on 200 acres of unsold borough property, on the condition that the council enforced the bye-law that prevented other people’s cattle from grazing on unfenced common lands in the borough. The issue was complicated by the confused legal status of the land in question and the proposal was shunted off to the “Public Works Committee” (The Telegraph, St. Kilda, Prahran and South Yarra Guardian: Saturday 19th October 1878). I doubt if anything came of it.
The sad fate of the horse, as described in the Geelong Advertiser, November 18, 1876.
The children did not have an easy time. In November 1876, while one of the boys (unstated) and a friend were trying to coral the Pynsents’ herd into their yard, one of Mr. Dillon’s horses accidentally got mixed in with the herd and panicked. After considerable commotion, it attempted to jump over the picket fence that separated the yard from Acland Street and failed. It impaled itself on one of the spikes and it ripped its stomach open. It had to be killed. The noise drew public attention and one old lady who fainted at the sight died the following day (Geelong Advertiser: Saturday 18th November 1876).
To add to the family’s sorrows, two of the elder brothers died shortly after their parents. “Burton Michael Pynsent, aged fifteen, second son of the late Joseph Burton Pynsent, merchant, Melbourne” died in July 1876 (Melbourne Argus: Tuesday 1st August 1876) and Charles Pynsent “third son of Joseph Burton and Mary Bridget Pynsent, aged 14 years passed away in August 1878 (The Telegraph, St. Kilda, Prahran and South Yarra Guardian: Saturday 31st August 1878).
Theresa was back in court in August 1877. Evidently, “Teresa Pynsent summoned G. Agnew, for detaining three cows and calf, valued at £ 55. From the evidence it would appear that the plaintiff sent her brother with the animals to the Melbourne sale yards but instead of selling them, the lad and the defendant entered, into a compact to keep the cows, and take home, only three or four pounds which the brother said had been the whole amount realized by the sale: The case was dismissed by the bench for want of jurisdiction” (The Telegraph, St. Kilda, Prahran and South Yarra Guardian: Saturday 11th August 1877). Which brother had been taken advantage off, is unstated. Alfred, the youngest, had a reputation for causing trouble; however, he was only eight years old. He, and another three other boys were “fined 1s with 2s 6d in costs for damaging plants on Mr. Eason’s ground in the Brighton Road” (The Telegraph, St. Kilda, Prahran and South Yarra Guardian: Saturday 31st August 1878).
Burton’s four remaining children, Mary Ann Theresa, Elizabeth Ellen, Joseph William and Alfred Thomas successfully ran the dairy farm into the early 1880s, However, by the time Joseph William reached the age of 21 years, in 1883, his elder sisters Mary Ann Theresa and Elizabeth Ellen were ready to marry and move on. Mary Ann Theresa married Edward Taylor and moved to South Yarra, and Elizabeth married a German immigrant, Paul Reinhold Carl Boehm in December that same year. The Argus was later (on Monday 28th December 1908) to publish a notice of their Silver Wedding, in which it states that Paul and “Bessie” were married at Christ Church in St. Kilda. They were living at Newport in Victoria in 1915.
How profitable St. Kilda farm was, I do not know but I suspect it was fairly marginal. Supreme Court records in the “Victoria State Archives” show that David Henry took Theresa to court in a civil case in 1882 and Mark Moss took her to court under her married name of Theresa Taylor in 1885. These may well have been for debt. The farm may have been unsustainable without the two women and the family likely sold up and moved on around then.
Joseph William Pynsent married Nellie Garland in St. Peter’s Church in Sydney, New South Wales, in January 1886 (The Sydney Morning Herald: Thursday 28th January 1886). They ran a more successful dairy farm near Bondi in Sydney (see elsewhere).
His youngest brother, Alfred Thomas Pynsent, also left St. Kilda. He had a chequered life but never married and is not described separately. Alfred had a troubled childhood. He ran away from home in 1880, when he eleven years old. His family were, needless to say, alarmed and they put the following notice in the local paper “Reward: Anyone that can give information of Alfred or Thomas Pynsent, who left his home 7th inst.: anyone detaining him prosecuted according to law: Apply Detective Office” (Melbourne Argus: Wednesday 21st April 1880). He eventually came home but went missing again two years later: “Missing – Alfred Pynsent, aged 13, wore blue serge trousers, last seen Castlemaine: Information thankfully received, anxious friends: Edith Cottage, West Beach, St. Kilda” (Mount Alexander Main (Victoria): Thursday 19th January 1882). Once again, he reappeared.
The allegations are set out in the newspaper. The Argus, January 19, 1887.
When he was 18/19 (1887/8) he went to work as a “carter” and “delivery boy” for Mr. Kerr, a dairyman in Hotham (North Melbourne). While there, in January 1887, he was one of several dairy boys arrested and charged with assaulting a 16/17 years old girl named Helen Walkerden. In court, Helen explained that she knew Alfred because he delivered milk to her parents. She said she had sat down with him under a tree and he assaulted her. Later that evening, she said she had gone out with another girl, called “Lottie”, who led her to Mr. Kerr’s dairy in Curzon Street, where Alfred and the other boys lived. Her friend got away (somehow), but she had been forcibly detained overnight and seven of the boys had assaulted her. Six, including Alfred, were charged (Riverine Herald: Thursday 20th January 1887 and other papers).
Her story started to unravel at a later hearing. The police stated that they were unable to locate the mysterious “Lottie” and doubted her existence. They also discovered that when Helen’s brother had met her in the street the following morning, she had said nothing about the outrage. It only came out when her mother questioned her about her absence overnight. There was no medical evidence of assault or complaints of noise from the boys’ house overnight, and other witnesses testified to the close relationship Helen had with Alfred and the other carters.
The boys pleaded “consent” and the magistrates accepted that that was probably the case. They discharged the defendants with a tongue-lashing. They said: “It was a disgraceful thing that young men should descend to such sensual, filthy, and degrading indulgence (Bendigo Advertiser: Tuesday 25th January 1887 and other papers).
Alfred was probably glad to move on, and he appears to have been living on Barkly Street, in Footscray a few months later. While there, he had his silver watch, with its attached gold chain (valued at £4 10s) stolen from his lodgings (Victorian Police Gazette: May 4th 1887). He later became a station-hand and he joined the Australian army at the outset of the Boer War. Arthur served as a Trouper (#1430) in the “6th Regiment of the New South Wales Imperial Bushmen” between 1899 and 1902. His unit fought in Rhodesia and the Eastern Transvaal and returned to Sydney on “The Orient” in January 1901 (Sydney Morning Herald: Monday 8th July 1901). Some idea of his experiences may be found in “Boer War: Regimental Orders for the 6th Regiment Imperial Bushmen, New South Wales, and the 3rd Mounted Brigade” in the “Western Sydney Records Centre”. Unfortunately, it is not yet on-line (2019). Alfred was awarded medals and clasps for service in South Africa, Belmont, Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal and Rhodesia (U.K. Military Campaign Medals & Award Rolls 1793 – 1949).
I can find no evidence of Alfred Thomas ever marrying. He seems to have stayed on in Sydney, New South Wales and died there in December 1911. He was buried in the Anglican portion of Rookwood Cemetery. I don’t know why as his mother was Roman Catholic and his brother Joseph William and his family were later to be buried there in the Roman Catholic section.
Joseph Burton Pynsent had six sons that I know of by his two wives; however, only one Joseph William Pynsent seems to have married and had children. His life is discussed elsewhere.
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Lindsay Burton Pynsent: 1918 – 1998 (Married Joan Flood, xxxx, New South Wales, 1949) Alfred Thomas Pynsent: 1919 – 1994 (Married Olive Victoria Davis, Bankstown, New South Wales, 1942) George William Pynsent: 1922 – 1976 (Married Berle Irene Unknown, xxxx; Wife (GRO1870))
Joseph Burton Pynsent (II) was the eldest son of Joseph William Pynsent, a “dairyman,” by his wife, Nellie (née Garland). He was born in Bondi on the coast to the east of down-town Sydney, in New South Wales and probably had a twin sister, Elizabeth Mary Pynsent. Joseph William and Nellie had nine children in Bondi (Waverley), and two more after they moved to Marrickville (Canterbury), another suburb of Sydney, in 1907. Joseph Burton was a teenager when they moved and he was, presumably, expected to help his parents on the farm and in the dairy.
Joseph Burton, or “Burton” as he was known, was a troubled youth. In 1908, when he was eighteen years old, he ran away from home and his disappearance was reported in the Police Gazette: “Missing from his home “Warren Dairy” Illawarra Rd., Marrickville since the 23rd Ultimo – Burton Pynsent, 15 years of age, looks old for his age, short, medium build, fair complexion, brown hair, scar on top of head, dressed in a navy-blue serge suite and straw hat. Suppose to have gone to Muswellbrook: Inquiry to Joseph Pynsent:”. He was older than reported! Perhaps the police were only prepared to act when a younger boy went missing and his father lied about his age. Whether Burton returned home, or found work with another employer is unclear.
Certainly, in January 1914, he was referred to in an “Equity Court” hearing. Mr. Cunningham, who was a “milk vendor” on Northcote Street, in Canterbury, sought an injunction to “restrain for a period of six months, Denis Grey, Cyril Carpenter and “Bery” (sic) Pynsent, formerly employed by him as carters, from disclosing the names and addresses of his customers”. It seems a reasonable request, particularly as Burton’s father sold milk.
After that, Burton seems to have settled down. He married Ethel Maud Budd in Canterbury in 1917 and they had at least three sons: Lindsay Burton Pynsent born in 1918 and Alfred Thomas Pynsent in 1920, and George William Pynsent in 1922. George’s birth date comes from his Second World War Army enlistment papers. I have yet to locate his birth records. Perhaps Joseph and Ethel had other children as well …
Joseph Burton became a “dairyman” like his father and the Electoral Rolls tell us that he was a “carter” who lived on Jarrett Street, in Campsie, in Canterbury, from 1930 to 1937. Presumably he was still delivering and selling milk door to door. Burton was a fully-fledged “dairyman” by the time his son Alfred Thomas Pynsent married Olive Victoria Davis in St. Paul’s Church, Bankstown in 1942 and also a “dairyman” living on Bryant Street in Rochdale the following year. Burton and Ethel were still living there in 1949.
Burton and Ethel had moved to Smithfield Road, in St. John Park, Cabramatta by 1954. He had probably retired from the dairy business by then, as he was reported to be a “labourer”. Joseph Burton and Ethel Maud took up their final residence, on Anglo Road in Parkes, in Campsie, sometime before 1958 and it was there that Burton “aged 77, late of Campsie” died in June 1968 (Sydney Morning Herald: 27th September 1968)
Joseph Burton and Ethel’s three sons, Lindsay Burton Pynsent, Alfred Thomas Pynsent and George Pynsent were brought up in Canterbury. Their lives are described elsewhere.
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Joseph Pinsent was the youngest of John Pinsent and Susanna (née Pooke’s) seven (surviving) sons. He was born on Newton Abbot, in Devon on 10th March 1770 and was seventeen years younger than his brother John (from whom I am descended). Joseph’s parents died before he was two years old and it seems likely that Joseph and three of his brothers, Gilbert, Charles and Samuel – who were only slightly older than he was – were brought-up by their uncle, Thomas Pinsent and his wife Mary (née Gale) at “Pitt Farm” in Hennock
Joseph inherited a small sum of money when his brother Robert died in 1781. However, he was still a minor at that point and the bequest had to be administered by his older brothers, John and William until he “attained the age of 21”. He also received a small legacy from his uncle Thomas Pinsent “of Pitt”, when his Will was probated in 1802. Thomas and Mary had no children of their own and the family farm passed to Joseph’s elder brother Charles Pinsent.
Letter granting Joseph Pinsent membership in the Company of Patternmakers.
Joseph’s brothers John and William were active in Newfoundland cod fishery and Joseph may have started out working with them; however, he quickly set up his own business. London’s Commercial Directories show that “Pinsent, Richardson and Walker” were “Shipping Agents and Insurance Brokers at #44 Great Towers Street”, in 1798. However, the partnership did not last long. It was dissolved the following year (London Gazette: 30th July 1799). Two years later, Joseph applied to Join the “Company of Patternmakers.” He had no intention of becoming a “patternmaker” but membership of any guild was a way of become a “Freeman and Citizen of London” which was, even in those days, a prerequisite for operating a successful business in the City of London. It cost him the princely sum of 46s 8d (London, England, Freedom of the City Admission Papers: 1681-1925).
Example advertisement from the Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser, February 2, 1807.
Joseph set up in business as an independent “Ships Broker and Agent” operating out of “#23 (sometimes called #3 Castle Court) Birchin Lane, Cheapside” and also “#4 Nicholas Lane.” He ran the agency out of London through until at least 1833 – two years before he died. However, the number of work-related advertisements he placed in the London papers dropped markedly after 1822, when he, himself, returned to Devon.
Joseph started out as a farmer. Devonshire’s Land Tax Assessments show that he rented a farm at Teignyeo in Kingsteignton taxed at £4 19s 8d in 1798 (the year before his first marriage) and he held onto it until 1814 – by which time he was fully occupied in London. Presumably it was leased out for much of the time after that.
Jurston Farm as photographed by Peter Brooks via Dartefacts.
Joseph also owned a relatively small farm (86 acres) called “Lower Jurston” farm, in Chagford Parish from 1807 to at least 1831. It cost him £1 18s 9d per annum in land tax. He may have bought the farm after his uncle Thomas Pinsent “of Pitt” died in 1802. It was not a big farm – or particularly well located – being on the edge of Dartmoor. Nevertheless, Joseph felt that with modern technology it could become provitable.
In March 1813, Joseph demonstrated the “operation of a Cultivator … held by the ploughman and drawn by three horses without a driver, and in five hours tormented the field which is two acres very completely …” (Evans and Ruffy’s Farmer’s Journal: Monday 1st March 1813).
When Charles Vancouver submitted his report entitled a “General View of the Agriculture of the County of Devon” to the Board of Agriculture in 1808, he showed that the rural economy was in deep trouble and that “agricultural labourers” in particular were suffering hardship. Life did not get much easier when Napoleon was defeated, as cheap food imports kept local farm prices down. There was little employment available for returning soldiers – which did not help. They were all too often thrown on the mercy of the parish. In any event, sometime in the 1790s Joseph decided to rent out his farms and move up to London and become a “Shipping Agent and Broker.”
There were two high profile Pinsent families living in the Teign Valley, west of Exeter, in the early 1800s. They were the HENNOCK family personified by Mr. Thomas Pinsent at “Pitt”, and the DEVONPORT family personified by a Mr. Thomas Pinsent who was a “tallow chandler” and owned “Greenhill Farm” in Kingsteignton. Their many relations clearly knew each other and their lines touched through marriage, in Joseph’ case not once but twice.
Many years later, Lucretia Maude Pinsent said of Joseph in her diary (as abstracted by my grandfather, Francis Wingfield Homfay Pinsent in 1929), “his first two wives were Pynsents (sic) and first cousins. The second having been bridesmaid at the wedding of the first: it was said there were then three beautiful women in Devon and he had married two of them, they being the Pynsents (sic)”. One is left to speculate as to the name of the third!
Record of Thomasin’s grave stone, 1799.
Joseph’s first wife was Anna Thomasin Croat Pinsent, who was the daughter of Thomas Pinsent and Ann (née Ball) of Newton Abbot. She was the Devonport “draper’s” elder sister. They married in Newton Abbot in May 1799; however, shortly after going up to London with her husband she took sick and she died later that year. They had been living on Prospect Row, in the parish of St. Magdalene, Bermondsey. Anna’s will was proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury. She left most of her estate to her husband but gave “one equal half part of her interest in Greenhill estate, in Kingsteignton (now or late in the occupation of Mr. Smale)” to her “dearly beloved sister Betsey”. The Elizabeth Pinsent who witnessed the signing of the will was presumably her cousin Elizabeth and not her sister “Betsey,” as a legatee should not have been acting as a witness.
Joseph married Anna’s cousin Elizabeth (the daughter of her uncle John Pinsent) in June the following year. The marriage took place a few months before the patriarch of the Newton Abbot branch of the family, Mr. John Pinsent“senior” (a “soap boiler” and “land-owner”), died. The activities of the DEVONPORT Pinsents are documented in another part of this database.
Much of Mr. John Pinsent’s estate passed to his eldest son, John Pinsent“junior,” so when his father died in October 1800 he, naturally, took over the family soap-boiling business in Moretonhampstead. Mr. John Pinsent’s estate included a farm at Lettaford, in North Bovey Parish that, according to the Land Tax returns, had been in his brother Thomas‘s hands since 1780, or earlier. John “junior” must have felt that it was superfluous to need and he put it up for sale in 1803. His brother-in-law Joseph Pinsent was in London at the time and interested parties were referred to him for details (Exeter Flying Post: Thursday 24th February 1803). It was not a good time for farmers and there were no takers.
Map showing Chagford and North Bovey.
“Higher” and “Lower Lettaford” remained part of the DEVONPORT Pinsents’ family’s holdings and probably passed to Thomas Pinsent when John “junior” died in 1804. Thomas was Anna Thomasin Croat Pinsent‘s father and, of course, Joseph’s erstwhile father-in-law! Thomas seems to have transferred Lettaford to Joseph in 1807 – possibly in exchange for his late wife, Anna’s, interest in his (Thomas’s) farm at “Greenhill” in Kingsteignton. The farm at “Lettaford” was contiguous to Joseph’s existing farm at “Lower Jurston” but located across the Chagford parish boundary in North Bovey. It cost Joseph an additional £1 17s 11d in land tax but must have provided economies of scale. Both farms were rented out while he was in London.
The Devon Longhouse at Lettaford.
Lettaford is a small hamlet on the banks of the Bovey River near the edge of Dartmoor, north of the B3212. It has changed little and it includes a modernized Devon Longhouse called “Sanders” that the “Landmark Trust” has recently made over into a rental cottage. The original medieval building consisted of two adjoining but connected parts – a single living room for a family and a byre for the livestock. Joseph would have lived in a more modern house!
There is a small Methodist chapel at Lettaford that appears to date to around 1860. The DEVONPORT Pinsents were non-conformist and Mr. John Pinsent of Moretonhampstead, the patriarch mentioned above, left a bequest to the “Deacon or leader of the Tabernacle in Moretonhampstead”. Perhaps the building marks the site of an older chapel that existed in Joseph’s day. It has also been made over into a cottage. As we shall see, Joseph himself seems to have been open to all religions.
The farm at Lettaford.
The Devon Record Office contains a document dated 1811 showing Joseph’s consent to the diversion of the Tavistock – Chagford Road through his property. The farms at “Jurston” and “Lettaford” were leased out for much of the time that Joseph was in London; which meant that he periodically had to find new tenants. The properties were advertised for “Let” or “Sale” several times (e.g. Exeter Flying Post: 25th August 1814). Together, they were described as comprising 180 acres and a large down (heath) that were well suited for about 25 cows and young stock and several hundred sheep (Exeter Flying Post: Thursday 15th February 1816).
Joseph was unable to sell either of the farms and he appears to have doubled down and bought a small (20 acres) and probably more profitable dairy farm at “Higher Gorway” in East Teignmouth in 1818 (Morning Post: Wednesday 4th March 1818). He rented it out while up in London and attempted to sell it after his return to Devon in the early 1820s. He put the property up for sale in 1828. He felt the site could be sold or leased out to a dairy farmer or, because of its views and setting, be subdivided and used for development (building) land (Exeter Flying Post: Thursday 25th December 1828).
Joseph and Elizabeth (née Pinsent) had five children, three sons and two daughters between 1802 and 1807; however, only one of each sex (Joseph Burton Pinsent and Elizabeth Satterley Pinsent) survived into adulthood. Sadly, Joseph William Pitt Burton Pinsent died as an infant in London in 1805, and John Robert Pinsent died as an infant in Moretonhampstead in 1808. What he died of, I am not sure but, but as noted by Silvester Treleaven in his diary, his elder sister Mary Anna Lambert Pinsent followed him to the grave in January 1809 and their mother, Joseph’s second wife Elizabeth died the following month: “Last Wednesday, at Moretonhampstead died, after a lingering illness which she bore with great resignation, Mrs. Pensent, wife of Joseph Pensent, esq., of London: her exemplary conduct thro’ life, and her truly amiable disposition, rendered her greatly beloved by all who had the pleasure of her acquaintance, by whom her loss is severely felt” (Exeter Flying Post: Thursday 16th March 1809). She was buried beside her children in Moretonhampstead.
Elizabeth’s death in 1809 left Joseph with two young children (Elizabeth Satterley Pinsent and Joseph Burton Pinsent) to look after, so he remarried a few months later. His late-wife’s sister, Mary Pinsent, had married the local schoolmaster in Moretonhampstead, William Tucker, in 1806 and the Ann Tucker that Joseph married in Drewsteignton was probably his sister. Joseph and Ann had seven children (four girls and three boys) over the next fourteen years. Mary Anna Pinsent, Anna Lucretia Pinsent and Harriet Cordelia Pinsent were baptized in Chagford in 1810, 1812 and 1814 respectively, so they were presumably born at “Lower Jurston” despite Joseph spending a considerable amount of time in London.
London’s Local Directories tell us that Joseph and Elizabeth had lived on Bernard Street, near Russell Square, in 1805 and in 1807. However Joseph and Ann were living in Blackheath by 1811 and in Camberwell (in what must then been a more rural part of Surrey) shortly after that. Their daughter Maria Sophia Pinsent was born in Camberwell in 1815 and died there in 1819. Joseph and Ann were still living in Camberwell when their sons Robert Baring Pinsent and Ferdinand Alfred Pinsent were born in 1818 and 1822 respectively. The former died “at sea” as a teenager in 1832. His loss is recorded on Joseph’s memorial in North Bovey Church. I would love to know more. As for Ferdinand Alfred, he went out to the West Indies and returned an Anglican Church Minister.
Joseph made a good living as a broker and shipping agent but he clearly thought of himself as a “gentleman farmer.” Somehow, he managed to have himself “elected” to a select club that was invited to attend Lord Somerville’s Cattle Show when it was held in Mr. Sadler’s yard in Goswell Street in London, in March 1807, and again the following year when it was held in March 1808 (St. James’s Chronicle: Thursday 5th March 1807 and 3rd March 1908). The show came with a free dinner and doubtless very useful contacts.
Joseph negotiated the sale of ships and secured passengers and cargo for European and colonial destinations. His activities are well documented in the London and other newspapers from at least 1799 onward. For instance, he arranged for the “fast sailing copper bottomed vessel “Isabella and Ann … armed with carriage guns” to take on freight and/or passengers for Palermo and also Genoa and Leghorn (Levorno) “if open to British Ships.” The ship was to join a convoy which was to be escorted by ships of the Royal Navy (Manchester Mercury: Tuesday 13th August 1799).
The “London Public Ledger and Commercial and General Advertiser” had carried the following advertisement on the 4th March 1806: “For the Cape of Good Hope, or elsewhere as the nature of the voyage may require: The New ship Earl Moira, coppered and copper fastened, burthen about 250 tons, armed with ten carriage guns, has excellent accommodations for passengers: Michael Brooks, Commander, who is well known in the trade: Applications for freight or passage to be made to Mr. Joseph Pinsent, No. 4, Nicholas Street”. Napoleonic wars were still going on and armament was important! The following year Joseph advertised, for sale or charter: “Two Good Ships the property of one owner, about 270 tons each per register, one of them just come out of dock, and now in readiness to take in a cargo; the other is coppered, and could be made ready in about ten days to take in Goods: For further Particulars apply to Joseph Pinsent, No. 4 Nicholas lane, Lombard Street” in the London Public Ledger (24th February 1807). A later advertisement in the same paper – inserted on 4th April of the following year (1807) – alerted the public that anyone interested in buying “a quantity of dried cod-fish now landed at Davis’s wharf, Horsley Down” should contact him at the same address. The wars played havoc with Newfoundland’s cod trade and it is not particularly surprising to see a cargo that must have been destined for Portugal or some other European country turn up in London.
Perhaps Joseph was helping out his brothers, John and William Pinsent, who were still involved in the cod trade. They may have commissioned him to sell “The Hull of the Ship “John and William”, of about 241 tons per register, about three years old, lately driven on shore near Lyminton, but now lying in Cowes Harbour. After the sale of the Hull will be sold the stores of the said ship in different lots. The purchaser of the hull may be accommodated, if required in part payment,” (Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser: Wednesday 11th June 1806). Clearly the mariners of the day had weather to contend with as well as enemy ships.
Joseph was commissioned to sell “The Good Ship, Peggy, Francis Pearson, late Commander, 365 tons register measurement, or thereabouts, built at Newcastle on Tyne, Mr. S. Wharton of Scarboro’ late owner” at Lloyd’s Coffee House, Cornhill, on Tuesday the 20th inst. (September) 1808, unless previously disposed of by private contract. “She is a fine, roomy vessel, sails fast and carries a large cargo at an easy draft or water, is well adapted to general purposes, particularly the West Indies Trade or the Transport Service, having great heights for either ofthose purposes. She is about seven years old. Now lying in the Surrey Canal and there to be delivered”. For further information, the London Public Ledger and Commercial and General Advertiser (16th September, 1808) referred its readers to Joseph Pinsent at No, 4 Nicholas Lane, Lombard Street. The Transport Service refers to the Royal Navy’s use of contract vessels for moving freight and personnel.
Joseph (along with many others) organized freight and negotiated the sale of ships throughout the Napoleonic wars and did very well for himself. There seems to have been plenty of cargo to ship and a stream of captured “Prize” ships brought into London to be sold. For instance: “The Galliot Ceres, formerly the Die Hoffnung, round stern, apparently Dutch of Danish built and free, burthen per register 75 tons, sails fast and will carry large cargo at an easy draft of water, well adapted for the coasting or neutral trades, newly fitted and wants little more than provisions to send her to sea immediately, now lying at the South Bank of the Surrey Canal: For further particulars apply to Jos. Pinsent, Broker, 4 Nicholas Lane, Lombard Street” (London Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser: July 10th 1810).
It took businessmen time to reestablished peacetime trade routes when the war ended in 1815 and, for a while, business remained strong. However, it dropped off soon enough and Joseph had to change his focus. His business with Newfoundland picked up to compensate and the “London Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser” (the paper had had the sense to shorten its name but it still had a way to go in this regard) of 3rd March 1817 shows that: “The First Spring Ship to sail in about ten days for St. John’s Newfoundland: The Eliza, A. 1: George Ford Master, nearly New, built at Teignmouth, Devon, burthen 140 tons, lying of the Tower. For freight or passage apply to the Master, at the New York Coffee House, on the American Walk at ‘Change Time; or to Joseph Pinsent, Broker, 25 Birchin Lane, Cornhill: N.B. The master is well acquainted with the Coast having been brought up in the Newfoundland trade:”
Map of London, England showing Birchin Lane.
Joseph moved his business from Nicholas Lane to Birchin Lane sometime around the end of 1816. Whether this was a sign of growth or retrenchment, I am not sure. Perhaps, for him, the most important post-war development was the growth of trade with South Africa, India and Australia. The London Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser shows that Joseph assembled freight and passengers for ships bound for Britain’s eastern colonies.
Newspaper clipping advertising the sailing of the ship Minstrel to the Cape of Good Hope.
For instance, he placed an advertisement in the newspaper on 31st July 1819 (and other dates) that shows: “The First Ship for Bombay, with leave to touch at the Cape of Good Hope and the Isle of France: The Oromocto, burthen 600 tons, coppered and A 1, Richard Strickland, Commander, lying in the City Canal: Has excellent accommodations for passengers for which, and for freight, apply to Joseph Pinsent, Broker, 24 Birchin Lane, or at the Jerusalem and Lloyd’s Coffee House:” The Isle of France refers to Mauritius, an originally French Colony that had been ceded to Britain by the Treaty of Paris in 1814.
Another advertisement posted in the London Public Ledger and Daily Adviser (Friday 2nd June 1820) shows: “To sail on or before the 3rd June, for Calcutta, with leave to touch at the Isle of France: the fine coppered ship Egfrid, 450 tons per register. Robert Brown Commander (late of the Lord Suffield): has excellent accommodation of passengers, lying in the City Canal: For freight or passage: Joseph Pinsent, Broker, at the Jerusalem and Lloyds Coffee Houses, or No. 3 Castle Court, Birchin Lane.” The following year we find: “For Van Diemen’s Land and New South Wales, to sail in all October, the fine coppered ship, Louisa, A-1, burthen 300 tons: A. Anderson commander: lying in the London Docks: her poop, cabin and between decks afford excellent accommodation for passengers: For Freight or passage apply to the Commander, at the Jerusalem and Lloyds coffee-houses or to Joseph Pinsent, Broker, 22 Birchin Lane, Cornhill” (London Times: Friday 12th October 1821). Van Diemen’s land was, of course, the name then applied to Tasmania.
Advertisement for the sailing of the ship Bengal, February 6, 1822.
Despite these and other advertisements that filled up the newspapers of the day, Joseph (and presumably other London brokers and merchants) found it difficult to adjust to “free trade.” They had had a monopoly of business during the Napoleonic Wars and they were not used to competition. Post war, other countries were building up their fleets and Britain was importing more of its food – particularly grain and all too often in their own ships and the affects of this were now rippling their way through the economy. In 1817, David Ricardo, Esq. M.P., a noted economist and Chairman of the “Committee of the House of Commons on Agricultural Distresses” published a book entitled “On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation.” In it, he explained the seemingly counter-intuitive arguments behind comparative advantage and “free trade”. The idea was starting to catch on, but Joseph was not impressed. It did not fit with his empirical assessment of the situation.
Joseph Pinsent’s “Conversations on Political Economy,” 1821.
In 1820, Joseph wrote a series of pamphlets entitled “Conversations on Political Economy: or A Series of Dialogues, supposed to take place between a Minister and State and Representatives of the Agricultural, Manufacturing, Shipping, Colonial, Commercial and Monied Interests; as well as of the Labouring classes of Society, with remarks on our present distresses, their causes, and the remedies applicable to them”. They were published by J. M. Richardson of 23 Cornhill, and Hatchard and son of Piccadilly in March 1820 and went on sale for the modest sum of 1s 6d. They were based on a series letters written to the Earl of Liverpool (First Lord of the Treasury) and other members of the Government.
Joseph felt that there was an obvious flaw in Ricardo’s argument that Britain should concentrate on manufacturing and make up any shortfall in food by importing it from abroad as ultimately the agricultural (and associated “landed”) sector – of which he was a junior member – would fail and the full weight of taxation including tithes and poor law payments would devolve to the manufacturing sector, which would lead them to raise their prices to such an extent that our continental competitors would stop buying our products. This would leave us without the wherewithal to buy their produce! Eventually, England would, thereby, lose any competitive advantage it might have had in manufacturing and its people – particularly in time of war, or during bad harvests, would be left to starve. He had a point.
The answer, as Joseph saw it, was to reduce our dependence on foreigners and harness the resources of the British Empire (Letter to David Ricardo, Esq. M.P.: March 16th 1821: David Riccardo: Critical Responses). Essentially, what he was advocating was the promotion of trade within Britain’s growing empire “let every kind of property in the British Empire be protected in the ratio of its respective value to the state”, and for the “doing away with restrictive laws and let(ting) all imports be made in British Ships.” – which seems a bit of a contradiction. He was hoping for free trade but only within the confines of the Empire.
The timber trade with the Baltic states was a matter of public concern in early 1821 and Joseph jumped into the debate to point out that he was only asking for appropriate protection for British and Colonial shippers against “unfair” foreign competition and not for state control of what can and should be shipped – or when and where. That aspect should be “free as air” (Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser: Tuesday 27th February 1821). Presumably his views reflected those of many London merchants at the time, and certain “Merchant Ship Owners and Others of the City of London” persuaded Sir W. De Crespigny of the City of London to present a petition to Parliament praying that it take both Mr. Pinsent’s and Mr. Ricardo’s views into consideration when preparing relevant legislation (Morning Post: Wednesday 28th March 1821). They wanted to see fewer restrictive practices. Mr. Stuart Wortley, however, felt that as they were only adding to the Parliamentarians reading list there was no value in their petition (Morning Post: Wednesday 28th May 1821)!
In a letter to the Prime Minister, the Earl of Liverpool, published in the Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser on 14th April 1821, Joseph waxed lyrical on the subject of protection. He claimed “love for my country will not permit me to be silent while I see your Lordship, as a Statesman, laboring under your present delusive system as it relates to your foreign policy, prejudicial as it is to the nation’s best interests and I feel constrained to offer my feeble aid to dispel that delusion.” It was a long, somewhat hectoring letter in which he stated that in an unequal world, Britain had the advantage of an empire and that by protecting employment, agriculture, industry and the transport trade within the empire we would reduce our dependence on foreigners and benefit the national purse. For instance, we could obtain our hemp, flax, cotton and tobacco from our own colonies rather than the United States, and we could import our timber from British North America and not the Baltic States.
Joseph went on to suggest that by giving preference to our colonies, we would increase investment in them; whereas by not doing so we were stunting their growth and limiting our export markets. He complained that the current policies would only lead to less self-sufficiency, and more unemployment and suffering. As he had said before, we would be far better off with protection! “The hackneyed remark of Dr. Adam Smith, that we have ‘risen in spite and not by protection’, should never haven uttered by a statesman who values his reputation.” “I further contend that it is not taxation but the want of knowing and properly applying the wealth and resources of the British Empire to their proper purposes that causes our present distresses” (Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser; Saturday 14th April 1821). Well, if you put it like that!
Not content with that, Joseph submitted a petition to the “House of Commons Agricultural Committee” in June explaining his position on maritime trade and asking for a hearing and a Mr. Lockhart bravely attempted to introduce the petition. He was howled down for his pains – largely because Parliament accepted David Ricardo’s arguments in favour of Free Trade. The meeting ended in confusion (Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser: Tuesday 19th June 1821). The petition was tabled in the house and it was made public in the Morning Post on Thursday 12th July 1821. It was yet another plea for government to use tariffs to protect Britain and her Colonies from “unfair foreign competition”. He was sure that protection would lead to investment in the colonies that would reduce Britain’s dependence of foreigners, encourage growth of industry and reduce unemployment and suffering at home.
Joseph’s main concern at the time was the affect of free trade on shipping. In December he wrote another long letter to the editor of the Morning Post (Tuesday 11th December 1821) decrying the Governments intention of repealing the Navigation Act – which required trade with Britain and its colonies to be done in British ships. The act had originally been passed in 1651 to break Dutch control of European shipping and it had largely succeeded. Without it, Joseph feared Britain’s maritime fleet would be priced out of the market. He saw no point in dismantling a system that had proved so advantageous to Britain in the past.
Joseph had other issues to deal with in December 1821. They concerned an insurance policy for £6,000 that had been taken out on the ship Oromocto to cover its return voyage from Bombay. The point of contention aired in the “Court of Common Pleas” was “whether or not the ship was sea-worthy at the time she made the voyage.” Evidently, she made it as far as Rio Janeiro and then “sustained some injury and on arriving at Maranham (Maranhao), it was found necessary to abandon the cargo to the underwriters and to dispose of her, she not being in a state to perform the voyage to England and no timber being at the place to repair her” (English Chronicle and Whitehall Evening Post: 18th December 1821). After considerable discussion, the jury decided that the ship had not been seaworthy when she left Bombay and it, therefore, found for the defendant. Presumably Joseph was not out of pocket.
The English had started to build canals to transport bulk products in the early years of the industrial revolution and by the 1760s they were a critical piece of national transportation infrastructure. It was a position they held until they were superseded by the railways built in and after the mid 1800s. Joseph latched onto the idea of building a canal from Southampton to London and he wrote a letter to the editor of the Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser (Wednesday 2nd January 1822) extolling the idea – with his usual back-of-envelope economic analysis. He pointed out the saving in time versus sailing up the channel and down the Thames, the saving in insurance for ships that were all too often lost on that stretch of coast and the benefit of employment for those involved in the enterprise. He admitted that the venture might cost £10 million but it would, doubtless, pay for itself. In this case, Joseph signs off as Joseph Pinsent “A True Pittite.” Joseph clearly thought that he was following in the steps of his hero, William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. Whether Pitt would have thought so, I am not sure. The idea had its detractors. W.B.O. wrote that, as Joseph must be well aware, the last thing shipping needed right then was a tax levied on it to pay for such a venture (Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser: Thursday 3rd January 1822. A few days later, on 8th, Joseph responded that if the project was feasible and economic the money would and should be found.
As an aside, it is worth noting that the first indication we have of Joseph’s fascination with “The Great Commoner” William Pitt, Earl of Chatham – the Whig statesman who headed the British Government during the Seven Years War (1756 – 1763) and transformed it into an imperial power – came in 1802, when he, along with many others contributed to a “Subscription for erecting a statue of the Right Hon. William Pitt, late First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, for the distinguished and valuable services he has rendered to his country during the course of his able and upright administration” (Hampshire Chronicle: Monday 21st June 1802). Joseph was by no means the first Pinsent to become enamoured of Pitt.
For reasons that are hard to fathom, Sir William Pynsent, a wealthy baronet from Curry Rivell in Somerset, left his entire estate to William Pitt in 1765! In acknowledgement, Pitt built the Burton Pynsent Monument on a bluff overlooking Sedgemoor. The rise and fall of the Pynsent branch of the family is described in a separate section of this database under The Pynsent Baronetcy: “The Trials and Tribulations of a Litigious Family: 1687 – 1765″. Another hint came in April 1804 when he had one of his sons christened Joseph William Pitt Burton Pinsent. Sadly, the boy died a year later. Nothing daunted, Joseph and Elizabeth baptized their next son, Joseph Burton Pinsent (Pynsent). He lived and his life is described elsewhere.
Back to politics: next up was Thomas Wallace, Vice-president of the Board of Trade: Joseph wrote him a long letter on the subject of global trade and the need to protect British and colonial ships from unfair competition. He clearly felt that Britain’s past success had come from protection, not in spite of protection. However, he objected to obscure constraints, such as those written in the East India Charter and American Treaties: “I offer to enter into a bond to forfeit the sum of £100 to you, your colleagues, or any leader or leaders of your new theory of Commerce and Finance if I do not substantially prove that the consequences of our East India Charter, independent of those arrangements by which the company is benefited, are to protect foreign commerce against British Competition, or, in other words, that a portion of the commerce of Great Britain is thus practically sacrificed for the promotion of the Commerce of Foreign States … …” (Morning Post: Saturday 5th January 1822).
The battle raged on in the press with Joseph fending off skeptics on the one hand (Morning Post: Friday 11th January) while trying to rally support with the other. He suggested a meeting of interested Agricultural, Colonial, East Indies, Shipping, and Moneyed interests at the City of London Tavern on the occasion of next assembly of Parliament to discuss the issue. Presumably he expected most would support his views; however, he was prepared to be magnanimous: “The gentlemen who attend it are requested to be prepared to approve or to dispute the accuracy of the above propositions. The Editors of Newspapers, and other publications are invited to insert arguments in opposition to these principles, provided they do the same by the answers” (Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser: Friday 11th January 1822).
Joseph thought the Marquis of Wellesley (then his Majesty’s Lord Lieutenant of Ireland) might give him as sympathetic hearing – given the level of poverty in Ireland, so he sent him a copy of his pamphlet “Conversations on Political Economy” and wrote him one of his long and meticulously argued letters (lectures) on how his proposal would foster growth at home and be of particular value to Ireland. “The want of profitable employment for her people is the principal if not the whole cause, and nothing (as I said before) but the protection of every property of the British Empire from foreign competition, according to its respective value to the State, so as to give all our people profitable employment at home and in our Colonies and increase the revenue in the like ratio can effect this desirable object, and that will give permanent prosperity to the Empire” (Morning Post: Thursday 17th January 1822). He was confident it would solve unemployment.
O.P. criticizes Joseph Pinsent’s economic theory, Morning Post, January 19, 1822.
Joseph’s views were seen as heretical by “free traders” and several anonymous merchants (including O.P.) wrote refutations in the press. They pointed out that, with the best will in the world the Empire could not meet every need and “that wherever we can procure an article better and cheaper than we can produce ourselves, there it is in our best interest invariable to go for it either for the purposes of necessity or luxury” (Morning Post: Saturday 19th January 1822). Mr. Pinsent responded that he would be happy to discuss the matter with O.P. if he would reveal himself and, besides, we could grow tea in New Holland (Australia).
Joseph’s frustration mounted as his ideas failed to gain traction and he felt obliged to submit a copy of a letter he sent to the Foreign Secretary, the Most Noble Marquis of Londonderry (Viscount Castlereagh) questioning the motives of the government and the competence of its ministers, to the Morning Post. “I wish to be understood as not charging your Lordship and Colleagues with improper motives, but with ignorance of such sound States-manly knowledge as is necessary to bring our might resources into action, and to give all our people profitable employment, increase our revenue, wealth and power in the like ratio. Could you but see your errors, self-interest would lead you to adopt different measures …” (Saturday 15th February 1822). The Marquis committed suicide six months later.
By March, the Most Noble Marquis was probably not alone in being heartily fed up with Joseph’s interminable repetitive letters and the tide had turned against him. His friends persuaded him to cancel his proposed meeting at the London Tavern at the beginning of the parliamentary session until the situation clarified. As a parting shot, he wrote: “No one can more sincerely hope that I many in the events prove a false prophet and that not one of my predictions may be verified than, Mr. Editor, your very obedient, humble servant: Joseph Pinsent: “A True Pittite” 22 Birchin Lane” (Morning Post: Saturday 9th March 1822).
Excerpt recounting the presentation of Joseph Pinsent’s petition to the House of Commons.
It was a short hiatus, as Parliament almost immediately agreed to allow him to submit a petition that he hastily arranged to be printed in the Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser (Monday 18th March 1822). It was yet another, perhaps more respectful, distillation of the ideas he had been promoting for quite some time and would have come as no surprise to anyone. However, he felt a little background reading for the Chancellor of the Exchequer (The Right Hon. Nicholas Vansittart) might not go amiss … (Morning Post: Tuesday 26th March 1822). He sent a similar letter to the Chairman of the Committee of the House of Commons on the Agricultural Distresses – David Ricardo, M.P. – the principal advocate of “free-trade.” What he thought of it, I do not know but I imagine his response would have been unprintable anyway.
Perhaps Joseph should have left it at that; however, the “West Indies Ship Owners Society” had recently met to discuss the implications of opening West Indies ports to foreigners. He jumped into the discussion – pointing out that it would be far more cost effective if Britain abandoned the West Indies and obtained its sugar from the East Indies, as he felt the cost of maintaining the West Indies as a British Colony was prohibitive (Morning Post: Wednesday 17th April 1822). The sugar “interests” were, needless to say, not impressed. They felt that previous administrations had enc0uraged them to exploit the West Indies and they were only asking for protection against foreigners after all – which was what Joseph wanted, wasn’t it (Morning Post: Friday 19th April 1822)?
Joseph was genuinely disturbed by the poverty he saw at home and that he read about in Irish Newspapers and he attributed it to lack of employment. He wrote a letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in June 1822 asking for the repeal of the Excise Laws as they tended to “lessen the consumption of our agricultural produce as well as the employment of our people” and thereby promote pauperism and starvation – which in turn leads to social unrest and the added cost of maintaining an army. He felt that cutting the West Indies loose would reduce the size of the army and ease the Government’s budgetary pressure (Morning Post: Friday 28th June 1822)
Despite Parliament’s opposition to Joseph’s views, Sir T. Lethbridge felt obliged to put forward Joseph’s petition that proposed “a committee be formed to enquire into the comparative value of all British interests, with a view to ascertaining to what degree of attention each was entitled …” and to see that it was presented to the appropriate committee. Mr. Sergeant Onslow said that Mr. Pinsent’s ideas were not new. “They are similar to those on which Bonaparte had acted, and which had led to his ruin when he determined that nothing should be consumed in France but what could be produced from her soil.” A Mr. Hume accepted that the ideas needed to be examined; however, he felt that they would lead to the destruction of British Commerce. Despite this unquestionable hint of negativity, the petition was ordered read and printed (London Statesman: May 31st 1822). Joseph appreciated getting the hearing but was disappointed that so many members of the House failed to comprehend the complexity of his plan (Morning Post: Tuesday 4th June 1822)! His ideas were based on forty years of observation and business practice and he was sure that if they were implemented they would lead to national prosperity and independence.
One of Joseph’s detractors, who signed himself “A.B.C.”, wrote to the Editor of the London St. James Chronicle and General Evening Post to complain that Joseph displayed more brass than judgement in criticizing Mr. Ricardo and by setting himself up as a political economist. “Alas! How little does he appear to know …” A.B.C. then presented a detailed refutation of Joseph’s concerns about the affect on the landed gentry, tithes and the implementation of “free trade” on the poor-law. His letter was published on 23rd April 1822, and Joseph came up with his own, somewhat sarcastic response on 2nd May. I doubt if A.B.C. was particularly mollified but Joseph probably appreciated getting in the last word. MERCATOR also took him to task and received a blistering discussion on the price of imported rice for his pains (Morning Post: Wednesday 3rd April 1822).
Doubtless to the intense annoyance of typesetters everywhere, the battle continued on over the summer. In July, Joseph was back to the West Indies issue. For all his protectionist instincts, Joseph still believed in “free-trade” within the empire. In a letter to W.I., who was presumably a “sugar planter” who wondered why he preferred the East Indies to the West Indies. He said he saw a clear distinction between them, as the former was essentially self-supporting while the latter was largely maintained at the expense of the British taxpayer. It was, thus, expendable (Morning Post: Tuesday 2nd July 1822). However, he acknowledged that there were “stupid clauses in their (East India Company) charter which tend to protect foreign commerce from British competition and limits the size of British ships trading from the United Kingdom to and from India.” W.I. was not impressed and argued that the West Indies were British Colonies within the Empire and they produced the bulk of the sugar consumed in Britain (as Joseph would have wished – surely?). The current generation of Planters were not responsible for slavery and if Britain did abandon the region and shift it’s sourcing to the east, it would be a disaster for the black population in the West Indies (Morning Post: Saturday 24th August 1822.
The summer’s correspondence sparked off another missive to the Earl of Liverpool on the damage done to the Navy by the relaxing of the Navigation Laws (Morning Post: Wednesday 10th July 1822). The following month he wrote to the Editor of the Morning Post explaining the absurdities in the Government’s current treaties with the United States and France. “I cannot, in the construction as well as in the principle laid down in this French Treaty, but admire the superior knowledge and abilities displayed by the French Statesmen over ours on the like occasion with America, as the protection duty of 16s per ton which the French have reserved to their own by levying it on the cargoes of American shipping in French ports very properly secures to French shipping the carrying trade of their own imports … “ (Morning Post: Thursday 8th August 1822). Joseph saw no problem with other countries applying his principle of “protection according to the value to the state”. His point was that Britain had an empire, and if it used it wisely, it would lessen its need for foreign products, and it would increase employment and wealth both in the colonies and at home. He used the example of hemp, which the Royal Navy then bought from Russia. It had recently agreed to purchase hemp from Canada – if it could be obtained at a comparable cost. Joseph argued that price was not everything, and there was extra value in producing hemp in Canada. The trade would spur British and Colonial industry – and perhaps even encourage the outward emigration of people now sustained by the Poor Rate (Morning Post: Friday 16th August 1822). By then, Joseph was routinely signing off his letters claiming to be “A True Pittite”. Rightly or wrongly, he felt that he was following in the steps of William Pitt the elder.
Higher Lettaford.
By then, Joseph had had about enough of London. He appears to have moved back to Devon in 1823. Records now held in the Devon Records Office show that the Chagford parish guardians assigned him apprentices for work at “Lower Jurston” in 1824 and 1825. Joseph put the farm up for sale in 1831 and with his family moved to his adjoining farm at “Higher Lettaford.”
Joseph’s brother John Pinsent (who had been a baker in St. Marylebone, London, and had run a shipping business in Newfoundland with another of his brothers, William) died in March 1821 and his son – Joseph’s nephew – Robert John Pinsent decided to sell up in London and move to Port de Grave to assist his aging uncle William run the Newfoundland end of the business. John’s widow and his unmarried daughters moved down to Devon and this may have factored into Joseph’s own decision to return there and concentrate on farming.
Joseph and Ann (née Tucker) returned to Devon with their seven children (Elizabeth Satterley and Joseph Burton Pinsent from Joseph’s second marriage and Mary Anna, Anna Lucretia, Harriet Cordellia, Robert Baring and Ferdinand Alfred Pinsent from his third). The couple had their last child, Charles Pitt Pinsent (Pynsent) after their return to Devon. He was baptized in in Chagford in 1824. His name is yet another nod to William Pitt and the long-gone baronetcy!
Joseph still had two brothers in Devon. Charles Pinsent and his wife Ann (née Yeo) was farming at “Pitt” in Hennock; however, he was to die a few years later (1826) and his son Thomas Pinsent who inherited “Pitt” ran the farm. His life is described elsewhere. As an aside here, it is worth mentioning that Thomas resurrected the name “Pynsent” and persuaded several of his cousins (Joseph’s sons and daughters) to go along with the idea and they changed their names as well! Hence the occasional reference to “Joseph Burton Pynsent” rather than “Pinsent”, and to the consistent reference to his younger half-brother, “Charles Pitt Pynsent”.
Joseph’s brother Gilbert Pinsent meanwhile, was a tenant farmer living at “Ponswin Farm” in Kingsteignton with his wife, Margaret, and their two sons William Pinsent and John Pinsent. They were shortly to move to “Aller Barton” in nearby Abbotskerswell. William Pinsent, the brother who had spent his life in Newfoundland, gratefully transferred the shipping business to his nephew Robert John Pinsent (as mentioned above) and retired to East Teignmouth in the mid-1820s with his wife Amy (née Richards). They had a surprisingly young son William Pinsent in tow. Joseph and has family must have had a lot to talk about.
Joseph also had family connections through his first wife, Anna Thomasin Crout Pinsent. His erstwhile father-in-law Thomas Pinsent was a “tallow chandler” living at “Greenhill” in Kingsteignton and his son Thomas Pinsent (Anna’s brother) was making a name for himself as a “draper” in Devonport. Thomas’s sons John Ball Pinsent and Richard Steele Pinsent were still young children. However, they would prove to be very influential in the years ahead. Joseph’s second wife’s brother John Heard Pinsent had died young but she had two married sisters living in the neighbourhood. All in all, and especially considering the number of related women-folk, Joseph was in good company and the Pinsents had rarely been more interconnected. They were, for the most part, successful middle-class merchants and farmers who knew each other, and their family name was well known throughout South Devon.
Joseph retained his business in London after his return to Devon and still diligently read the newspapers, and kept up his combative approach to political governance. In early 1827 he wrote an exasperated letter to Mr. E. P. Bastard, Esq., and Sir Thomas Dyke Ackland, Bart, the Members of Parliament for Devon, calling for public debate on the price of bread and the need for protection under the Corn Laws (Flindell’s Western Luminary: 9th January 1827). The following year, he reminded the public of his past efforts to influence foreign commercial policy “I did in vain, for some years previous to 1821, constantly and anxiously endeavour to call our then miscalculating ministers’ attention to the errors of their system; but as I could not serve my country directly in that way, I addressed the annexed [letter] to the ministers of foreign states, in hopes of doing indirectly what I could not do directly for my suffering country. France, and the United States of America, come near to my views, and I was in hopes that this would have shamed Messrs. Huskisson and Co. to have abandoned their quackery, but you see not even the destruction of their country would convince them of their errors. Jos. PINSENT: Now of Jurston, Chagford, Devon: N.B. All countries should possess a public board under the direct appointment and control of the democratic branch of its legislature, for the purpose of receiving the communications of men of talent and genius, otherwise the ignorance and superciliousness of men in power may render abortive all the talent, genius, industry, and virtue of the rest of the community. This has been verified in more instances and in more countries than one” (London Packet and New Lloyd’s Evening Post: Friday 25th January 1828). He was not a happy man.
Later that year, Joseph wrote to the Earl of Malmesbury asking for another petition to be heard in the House of Lords in 1828. He claimed: “that he possessed information upon financial, commercial, and agricultural subjects, which, if communicated to the Lordships, could not fail to promote the best interests of the country, and without the violation of any fixed principle” (St. James’s Chronicle: Thursday 5th June 1828. The petition, “having been read at length was ordered to be laid on the table”. Where it, presumably, gathered dust.
On another front, Joseph was becoming concerned about the availability of currency in the country. He felt that most of the twenty-two million gold sovereigns the Chancellor of the Exchequer then said were in circulation, most were probably in foreign hands (Flindell’s Western Luminary: 17th June 1828). He worried that the Bank of England’s plan to replace one pound notes issued by Country banks with its own would further reduce the amount of money in circulation (Western Times: Saturday 21st June 1828). In 1832, and wrote a letter to the editor of the Exeter Flying Post (Thursday October 25th 1832) arguing that Britain’s ongoing financial difficulties were caused by lack of protection and by restriction of the money supply: “add to what I before have stated, the decline of the prosperity of the British empire may be dated from the period of our diminishing our circulating medium, combined with our withdrawing our protection of our native and colonial industry.” Clearly, he was still hankering for the “good old days” when Britain prospered under William Pitt.
The great Reform Act enacted in 1832 improved voters rights in Britain but Joseph had serious doubts about the economic policies proposed by the so-called “Reform” Government which, he felt, too closely resembled those of the previous one. Earl Grey, obviously, needed to be reminded of the proper way of doing things: “our colonies should by an act of union, be made integral portions of the British Empire, and then with all our other interests they should be protected from foreign competition, commensurate with their respective value to the state, and subject thereto, the commerce of the Empire should be allowed to have the freedom of air” (Exeter and Plymouth Gazette: Saturday 5th January 1833).
Living in Devon, Joseph certainly saw the effect of poverty on its “agricultural labourers” and he blamed the local magistrates who, he felt, were unreasonably harsh. They failed to realize that it was economic policy and not indolence that led people into misery and crime. He said they deserved public support. “The genius of Pitt is required to put us to rights, for until the people are restored to their profitable employment, no property of the British Empire can be secure” (Exeter and Plymouth Gazette: Saturday 4th May 1833). Joseph thought that as most of the magistrates were (like him) landowners and paid land-tax and local poor rates, they too would see the benefit of promoting full employment. Joseph could not understand why the recently elected Reform Act Parliament had not done anything about it (Exeter Flying Post: Thursday 3rd October 1833)! His disappointment clearly shows through in the letter he wrote to the Editor of “Flindell’s Western Luminary” published on 31st December 1833, and in others that followed.
Some people listened (I doubt he was reticent in conversation) and others doubtless read his letters and quietly approved. In January 1834 “An Englishman” wrote an open letter to the press pleading for Joseph to do something about the Government’s policy of “free trade” as applied to shipping, which he felt was ruining British commerce (Exeter and Plymouth Gazette: Saturday 25th January 1834). Joseph was getting on in years by then but he, of course, responded. He acknowledged the problem – which was, he felt, because the current administration was full of “dolts, sophists and knaves.” He suggested the writer “get up a petition to both houses of parliament to protect every interest and industry of the British Empire …” You get the picture. In addition, he wrote a letter to Lord Althorp, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. In it, he reiterated his long-held position on protection, especially as applied to shipping, and he pointed out the danger to Britain of reliance on foreign food and other items. Once again, he attributed poverty and social unrest to lack of meaningful employment. Joseph pointed to the rotting hulks around Britain’s shores and wondered out loud where Britain’s sailors would come from when they were needed by the Nation in time of war. He feared Britain’s lack of ability to respond militarily (Exeter and Plymouth Gazette: Saturday 8th February 1834). Not content with that, on the 8th March, Joseph sent the Chancellor another letter propounding his theories. The Morning Herald (Saturday 1st February 1834) went so far as to decline to publish his letter to Lord Althorp – on the grounds that “we insert no letters but such as are addressed to the Editor. The extreme length of the communication is also objectionable.”
By now, Joseph was definitely getting repetitive and quarrelsome and there must have been many who agreed with “T. M. Devonport” “Mr. Editor, spare our readers another inflection of bad grammar, illogical reasoning, tiresome tautology and obsolete doctrines from the garrulous pen of THE REAL PITTITE, who appeared by his own showing to have had the vanity to offer himself as a Mentor of the Chancellor of the Exchequer” (Exeter and Plymouth Gazette: Saturday 1st March 1834).
It did not work. A week later, the newspaper published yet another letter directed at the Chancellor of the Exchequer. This one was full of specific recommendations, including the actual duties that should be applied to commodities brought by foreign ships into British (and colonial) ports “fifty shillings per quarter on all foreign wheat and other grain in seed in proportion – one shilling per pound on all foreign sheep and cotton wool … etc.” The revenue so generated, he felt, could be used to reduce costs at home “These duties, my Lord would produce from ten to twelve millions sterling per annum for some years to come, which would not only enable your lordship to repeal our present impolitic and partial assessed taxes, the malt and hops duties, and nearly abolish all our turnpikes and toll bars …” To Joseph, it was obvious that imposing costs on foreigners and encouraging trade within the empire would be of lasting benefit to the country as a whole. The issue was discussed in Parliament and, to Joseph’s horror, Mr. P. Thompson, the President of the Board of Trade was less than responsive and Joseph was left gasping that “the substance of his imbecile arguments were intended to prove that English ships were not only capably of competing with foreign ships, although the latter were built and sailed at about half the expense of our ships, but that England depended for prosperity on her foreign trade, and that unless we permitted foreigners to trade on the terms of our reciprocity bill, they would exclude our ships and merchandize from their ports altogether” (Exeter and Plymouth Gazette: Saturday 21st June 1834).
1835 was an election year and in the month of May Joseph picked up his pen to make a few pointed comments about Lord John Russell, the presumptive Whig candidate for South Devon. He had been one of the main architects of the Reform Bill passed by Earl Grey’s administration in 1832. Joseph argued that his Lordship “like that of his colleagues in general, proceeds from his and their ignorance of the science of finance, of the science of currency, of the science of commerce – or in other words, of the bearing of those matters on the industry of the people and welfare of the state”. Joseph assumes from his total failure, hitherto, to vote for legislation that eases the lot of the people, that although he “appears to be a good-hearted, talkative sort of man, and has without knowing it become the dupe of a faction” it would be folly to vote him back into Parliament until he changes his ways (Exeter and Plymouth Gazette: Saturday 2nd May 1835. He was, nevertheless, duly elected and appointed Secretary of State for the Home Department.
For his swansong, Joseph wrote to Lord Russell that December to explain his views on parliamentary reform: “I strongly recommend to your Lordship to add to our present House of Commons, twenty representatives from the Labouring and Mechanical classes, twenty more to represent our shipping interests, and thirty to represent our Colonial Empire, when I have every reason to believe that those seventy members will bring more practical men and commonsense intelligence into the great Council of the Nation, than all its present members put together.” Joseph also suggested that new members should be qualified “each of them shall be able, in the most explicit manner, to state what constitutes the wealth and support of the State, and also to describe the geographic position and statistical capabilities of the mighty Empire for which they are called on to make laws, as well as to describe the measures necessary for bring the vast resources of our unrivalled empire in to action …” (Exeter and Plymouth Gazette: Saturday 12th December 1835). These, like most of his ideas, for better or worse, came to naught.
Joseph died a few weeks later, aged 65. He was buried in North Bovey where there is a monument to his passing in the Parish Church. Interestingly, it carries the coat of arms of the old Pynsent baronetcy, although Joseph had no real right to it – as his nephew, Thomas Pynsent would later show. Joseph (and I for that matter) come from a different branch of the Pinsent family.
The text of Joseph Pinsent’s obituary in the Exeter Flying Post, January 14, 1836.
In a somewhat quirky obituary, the editor of the Exeter Flying Post noted that Joseph was “a constant correspondent.” He notes that he was a merchant and ship owner in London who disagreed strongly with the government over economic policy and retired back to Devon, where he “endeavoured to bring neglected land into cultivation and to improve the neighbouring peasantry.” Joseph had certainly shared his insights on agriculture: he wrote a letter to the Exeter and Plymouth Gazette in November 1833 on the design and management of plough-teams. He pointed out that wheeled ploughs may work well in Kent but, he claimed, they were not really suitable for most Devon soils (Saturday 16th November 1833). Joseph admired progressive farmers and “he may be said to have spent a fortune, as an experimental agriculturalist, for which, now in these times of action and reaction, his family are not likely to reap much harvest from his industry” (Exeter Flying Post: Thursday January 14th 1836). Joseph had just about admitted as much. When advertising “Lower Jurston” (86 acres) for sale in June 1831, he described its cultivation potential and stock holding capability, and then states: “It has been in the occupation of the present proprietor and has cost him in real useful improvements some thousands of pounds more than he expected now to get for it” (St. James’s Chronicle and General Evening Post: Saturday 18th June 1831). What his assets amounted to at the time of his death is unclear; however, an interesting note in the London Times (Friday 5th February 1836) states that “The Executors of the late Mr. Joseph Pinsent are requested to apply to Mr. Rolfe, Gracechurch Street, where they may hear something of consequence to them.” Perhaps he had had overseas assets that had come to light.
After Joseph’s death, his wife Ann and his son Joseph Burton Pinsent (who was by then living in Bristol) tried to sell the farm at Lettaford, which they thought could be divided into three lots (35 acres at “Lower Lettaford”; 15 acres including two cottages, a field, plantation and moorland around Lettaford village and 16 acres including “Higher Lettaford” house and its farmstead) (Western Times: Saturday 19th August 1837). Presumably there were no takers. Mrs. Pinsent advertised “Higher” and “Lower Lettaford” for Let in May 1839 and sold off the remaining crops (including corn, hay and quality potatoes), stock (cattle, sheep and pigs) and implements of husbandry the following August (Exeter Flying Post: Thursday 8th August 1839). Nevertheless, Ann was still living there at the time of the Census in 1841. How much of the land had been sold by then is not clear; the family seems to have retained “Higher Lettaford” house as Joseph’s daughter Mary Anna Pynsent was living at there in 1871.
Joseph’s eldest daughter from his second marriage, Elizabeth Satterley Pinsent, married William Francis Splatt in 1840. He was a Devonian and (apparently) an accountant in Manchester. The couple emigrated to Victoria, in Australia, in 1841 and Mr. Splatt made a fortune running sheep on the Wimmera River. He then spent a few years as a “businessman” and “merchant” in Melbourne before returning to Devon ten years later.
In 1853, William Francis Splatt wrote a letter to the Governor of Victoria (His Excellency C. J. La Trobe, Esq.) describing his experiences running sheep in the State in the 1840s. He told him about the various pioneers and the land they owned, and when and how the business had evolved. He also commented on the the local aborigines and was not entirely complementary. William Francis went on to say that he bought the “Wonwondah” sheep station in 1845 and brought in his brother-in-law Charles Pitt Pynsent (Elizabeth’s half-brother – who was 21 years old) to help him run it. He then said that he bought the life-stock and the rights to Messrs. Jackson and Gibson’s station at “Roseneath” on the banks of the Glenelg River in 1846 but – sold it to a Mr. John Ralston in 1849. That year, he purchased Messrs. Curlewis and Campbell’s stock and stations on the Lower Murray River.
Mr. Splatt was appointed a member of the Victoria Legislative Assembly in the early 1850s and he was a wealthy man when he returned to England a few years later. His wife, Elizabeth, died in 1878 and Mr. Splatt remarried and towards the end of his life participated in local politics. He was appointed a magistrate in Torquay and, in 1892, became its first mayor. He died suddenly, shortly after his term in office ended (genuki-website-inquest-F.W.Splatt).
Foreign travel was risky and Mr. Splatt signed what was probably one of what were to be many wills in 1856. Certainly, it is unlikely to have been his “Last Will and Testamant”. In it, he made provision for his (then) wife Elizabeth but makes no mention of children and they probably did not have any. A partial family tree later made by my father suggests that Mr. and Mrs. Splatt adopted Elizabeth’s half-brother Charles Pitt Pynsent’s eldest daughter Frances Elizabeth Pynsent. Certainly, we find Mr. and Mrs. Splatt and “Miss Pinsent” staying in Torquay in May 1862 (Torquay Chronicle and South Devon Advertiser: Saturday 31st May 1862 and Frances was with them, at Flete in Holberton, Devon, at the time of the 1871 Census. However, Elizabeth’s half-sister Lucretia and her half-brother Charles Pitt Pynsent, and their cousin Thomas Pynsent (above) were also there so that may not mean much.
In his 1856 will, William Francis Splatt gave an annuity to his “wife’s sister” (actually half-sister) Mary Anna Pynsent and allocated four thousand pounds to “satisfy a mortgage made by my brother in law Joseph Burton Pynsent on Premises situated in Melbourne”. Joseph would not have received this bequest as he had died long before Mr. Splatt. Also, “Burton” (as Joseph was known) had had to surrender the property many years earlier while going through at least bankruptcy. He would have appreciated having the money when he needed it! Charles Pitt Pynsent, William Francis Splatt’s erstwhile partner in Victoria was to have been one of three executors of this likely redundant will.
Handwritten pages from Anna Pinsent’s diary in 1864.
In 1864, Anna Brown Pinsent—the first wife of (Sir) Robert John Pinsent, one of Joseph’s brother John’s family, who lived in Newfoundland—took three of her children Lucy (7), Kate (6) and “baby” Willie to England for a visit. While there, she wrote a diary that is now in my possession. The entries from Saturday 23rd July to Sunday 25th September describe her life in Torquay – where they were entertained by Mrs. Elizabeth Satterley Splatt – and also her subsequent visit to London. Anna describes daily happenings: she complains about the cost of living and talks about Sunday church services. She describes family visits and outings, and discusses letters received from home. She was clearly missing her husband and her other son (Hedley (2)). She makes the following observations: “July 27th, Dear Robin’s birthday, [her husband] I wish he were here….”. “July 30th. Baby [William Satterly Splatt Pinsent – clearly named in honour of their hostess] is 4 months old today: raining in the morning and I employed myself in writing a letter to Mrs. Keddell [one of Charles Pinsent of Pitt’s daughters] and a “Miss Pinsent”, who was probably one of Charles’s granddaughters, none of whom were then married. My guess is that this would have been Margaret Jane Pynsent who was then twenty and an appropriate age to escort Anna and her children around. Elizabeth, being the eldest of Joseph’s daughters had clearly taken on the role of the matriarch of the family-at-large after her step-mother (Ann née Tucker) died in 1855. Interestingly, she appears to have inherited at least one of her father’s oil paintings of Sir William Pynsent as her cousin Thomas Pynsent describes seeing it at her home in Torquay. He had another [The Pynsent Baronetcy: The Trials and Tribulation of a Litigious Family: 1687-1765].
William Francis Splatt and his brother-in-law Joseph Burton Pinsent set up in business as a corn-factors in Bristol in the early 1830s. The firm operated under the title “Pinsent and Splatt” for a few years before the partnership was dissolved by mutual consent in 1835 (London Gazette: 23rd January 1835). The two men remained connected, of course, through William’s marriage to Joseph’s sister.
Joseph Burton (or “Burton” as he was generally known) married Mary Ann Ogden Hassall in 1836 and continued to import grain from Ireland for a few years. However, he headed out to Melbourne shortly before William and Elizabeth returned to Devon in 1853. Joseph Burton set up as “merchant” on Elizabeth Street and (through a woman other than his wife!) went on to found the Australian Pynsent branch of the Hennock family. You will find his story (and theirs) elsewhere in this database.
William Francis Splatt also went into partnership with his wife’s youngest half-brother, Charles Pitt Pynsent (who was from the third marriage) shortly before returning to England in around 1853/4. William acquired a sheep run in 1852 and brought in his young brother-in-law to run it. In “The Currency Lad” a book by T. S. Willis Cooke, there is a letter that William wrote to the previous owner, It states: “Dear Sir, I agree to purchase your stock and stations at the price and terms described in your offer of the 23rd October inst (copy of which is annexed hereto) and I hereby authorize my partner, Mr. Charles P. Pynsent, to draw on me on sight payable to your order for the sum of £2,000 being the deposit money mentioned in your offer. Mr. Pinsent is also authorized to take delivery of the stock and stations at your convenience and on your handing me his receipt for the same and your making the usual transfer, I will grant you my acceptances for £4,000 and £2,000 as stipulated and also a mortgage over the entire property to secure the one payment of the said acceptances and also the residue of the purchase money with the interest thereon in conformity with your offer. I have only to add that if Mr. Pynsent should make any further purchases of you either of live or dead stock the same will be a binding, one, Dear Sir, Yours very Truly, Wm. F. Splatt: P.S. As Mr. Pynsent takes an equal interest with me in this purchase and will take the active management I shall of course readily acquiesce in all his arrangements: W.F.S.” It seems that the previous owner had over extended himself and “It became impossible to get enough servants and farm hands as people headed for the diggings and in October 1852, just over a year after moving into his ‘Mansion’, he was forced to sell Lexington to William Francis Splatt and Charles Pitt Pynsent on the basis of ‘walk in – walk-out’ for the huge sum of £35,000 on mutually agreeable terms: the property was 120,000 acres, or 187 square miles” The letter included an inventory of contents; including 28 or 29,000 sheep. It was a lot of responsibility for Charles Pitt Pynsent who was still a relatively young man. His story is told elsewhere.
Meanwhile back in England, the Census takers found Joseph’s widow Ann (née Tucker) living with her unmarried daughter Mary Anna Pynsent at “Feoffees House” in Manaton in 1851. Mary Anna was a native of Devon and a boarding “school-mistress”. Her household included her half-brother Joseph Burton Pinsent’s son Thomas Ogden Pinsent (who would have been around 12 years old), a niece and nephew, Fanny and Frederick Partridge (who had been born in the Cape of Good Hope and London respectively), and a Jane Tucker who was, presumably, another young cousin as Anna’s sister Harriet Cordelia Pynsent had married John Partridge, a local farmer, in North Bovey, in 1838. Her children must have attended the school. Mary Anna employed three local female “teachers” aged between 15 and 20. In addition to family, they also taught nine local female scholars aged between 12 and 15, and three younger male scholars. Of these, John and James Tucker, were probably also “cousins”.
Mary Anna’s mother died in Manton in November 1855 (Melbourne Argus: Monday 3rd March 1856). Mary Anna stayed on there and kept teaching. In 1861, she was living at Ivy Cottage in Manaton with two Tucker children (Mary and Charlotte) and four local male scholars. She retired sometime in the 1860s and was back living at her father’s erstwhile home in Lettaford when the next Census was taken in 1871. She died at Lettaford in 1875. Mary Anna’s sister, Anna Lucretia Pynsent never married either. She was described as “independent” when she died in Torquay in 1880. Her will was probated by her brother, the Reverend Ferdinand Alfred Pynsent.
Map of Antigua and Barbuda in the Caribbean.
Ferdinand Alfred Pynsent was born in London in 1822 and educated at the “King’s Grammar School” in Ottery St. Mary. From there, he went out to the West Indies. He must have forgotten his father’s disparaging remarks about West Indies “sugar planters!”
Ferdinand was baptized (re-baptized ?) in 1837 and was one of three young men granted Exhibitions at “Codrington Grammar School” in Barbados in 1839 (Barbadian: 27th April 1839). He went on to become a “master” in the “Public Grammar School” in Antigua the same year and later to become an Anglican clergyman. The Lord Bishop admitted Ferdinand Alfred Pynsent (sic) and two others to the “holy office of Deacons” in Antigua in February 1847 (Barbadian: Saturday 27th February 1847). Ferdinand had evidently bowed to pressure from his cousin Thomas Pynsent of Pitt House in Hennock and changed his name from Pinsent to Pynsent!
They were unsettled times in the West Indies, and Ferdinand was one of several clergymen who signed a “letter of appreciation and support for the Bishop following an ecclesiastical revolt on nearby Montserrat” (Barbadian: Wednesday 12 May 1847). It seems to have earned him a promotion as his licences was forthwith transfered to “St. James district, within the parish of St. John.” (Church and State Gazette (London): Friday 25th June 1847).
Ferdinand married a local girl, Emma Furlong in 1847. The 1881 Census shows that she was “a British Subject born in Montserrat, in the West Indies.” Ferdinand returned to England shortly after the marriage – perhaps to look for a clerical appointment. However, he was back in the West Indies in February 1848 (Barbadian: Wednesday 9th February 1848).
Bawdeswell Church, which was destroyed in 1944. Via Bawdeswell.net.
Ferdinand moved back to England shortly thereafter and was installed as Rector of Bawdeswell in Norfolk. This was probably through the influence of Edward Lombe Esq. (Norfolk News: Saturday 2nd August 1851.) Mr. Lombe seems to have been a friend of the family as Ferdinand’s cousin, Thomas Pynsent, had even gone so far as to name one of his daughters Florence Lombe Pynsent. Presumably he was her god-father.
Bawdeswell was a fairly affluent parish in East Anglia – perhaps best known for being the home of the Reeve in Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales.”
Ferdinand and Emma had no children that I know about; however, he was sensitive to the needs of children. In 1859, he made as subscription to “The Soldiers’ Daughters’ Home for the Maintenance, Clothing and Education of Daughters of Soldiers, Orphans or Not” (Morning Herald (London) Thursday 9th June 1859). Ferdinand was (hardly surprisingly) a delegate at the Church Congress held in Norwich in 1865 (Morning Herald (London): Wednesday 4th October 1865). He remained the incumbent at Bawdeswell until he died.
Map of Bintry and Bawdeswell.
Bawdeswell is a few miles to the southeast of Bintry (a.k.a. Bintree), where the Rev. F. Wingfield Homfray was incumbent and it seems likely that Ferdinand introduced one of his Newfoundland “cousins”, Robert John Pinsent (later Sir Robert) to his neighbour’s daughter Emily Hetty Sabine Homfray.
Ferdinand is listed as the rector at Bawdeswell Church in the 1881 census.
The connection between Ferdinand and his father Joseph’s extended family and that of his uncle, John Pinsent, extended down at least one more generation as Sir Robert’s son Francis Wingfield Homfray Pinsent later had dealings with one of Charles Pitt Pynsent’s sons. Ferdinand also helped officiate at the marriage of his cousin Thomas Pynsent of Northam’s daughter Jane Augusta Pynsent to Colonel T. A. Rawlins in 1877 (The Patriot: 10th December 1877). Their lives are all discussed elsewhere.
Ferdinand’s gravestone in Bawdeswell Church Yard, Norfolk, England.
Emma died in 1888 and Ferdinand Alfred died a few years later, in 1894. He was the last of his generation and his passing was even acknowledged in Australia. The Sydney Morning Herald (28th July 1894) notes that he was the “dearly beloved uncle of Joseph and Alfred Pynsent of Bondi Beach.” They were two of Ferdinand’s brother Joseph Burton Pynsent’s sons. I doubt if they had ever met but their father presumably held Ferdinand in high regard.
Ferdinand and Emma are buried side by side in the churchyard next to Bawdeswell Church. However, it is not the edifice he knew as that was destroyed by a Royal Air Force Mosquito bomber that crash landed on it in 1944. The current church was built after the Second World War.
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