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Charles Speare Pinsent was the third and youngest son of Robert John Pinsent, a justice of the peace in Brigus, Newfoundland, by his wife, Louisa Broome (née Williams). He was the youngest of three brothers. Robert John (later Sir Robert Pinsent) was the eldest and Thomas Williams Pinsent was the middle child. His brother’s lives are discussed elsewhere.
The boys were educated at Harbour Grace Grammar School; however, they may also have been schooled in England. The two younger boys seem to have been particularly good at arithmetic (Weekly Herald: 22nd December 1947). Charles spent his teenage years in Harbour Grace where – he (doubtless pressured by his abstemious father) paraded with the “Cadets of Temperance” when they put on an entertainment in July 1853 (Weekly Herald: 27th July 1853).
Charles studied accountancy and moved to St. John’s where, according to City Directories, he was a clerk at the “Union Bank of Newfoundland” on Duckworth Street by 1864. He rose through the ranks and was the bank’s provisional manager in June 1894 (Evening Telegram: 7th June 1894). The previous manager, Mr. Goldie, had retired and gone back to Scotland and Charles was formally confirmed in the top job a couple of months later.
Charles lived with his (by then retired) father and his other brother (Thomas Williams Pinsent) at #4 Cochrane Place, Military Road in St. John’s in 1871. However, his parents returned to England later in the 1870s and his brother left when he got married so Charles move out in around 1880. He advertised the house for rent as of May 1882 (Evening Telegram: 2nd May 1881).
As a young man, Charles was active in the “Artillery Section of the City’s Volunteer Force” – according to his friend and colleague, H. W. LeMessurier, J.P. – who wrote an article on the unit in the “Newfoundland Quarterly” 1914-15 – Charles was gazetted as an ensign in 1865, a Lieutenant in 1867 and Captain in 1869. Perhaps he was fortunate to be able to join the Volunteers in the first place – if, indeed, he was the Mr. Charles Pinsent who, with a Miss Cowan, was thrown from his carriage when their horse took fright and bolted in downtown St. John’s in 1863. If this was our Charles, his “injuries are said to be of a dangerous nature, (and he) had to be conveyed to the residence of Dr. Fraser” (Evening Telegram: 15th July 1863).
Charles’s brother Robert John Pinsent divorced his first wife, Anna Brown (née Cooke) in London in 1870 and Charles, as the family’s principal man of figures and accountant in the family, was on-hand to witness the signing of the separation agreement on 31st March 1870. Robert remarried a few years later. His life is discussed elsewhere.
Charles was a Director of the “Notre Dame Mining Company” in the early 1870s. The company sunk a shaft at Burton’s Pond on the northwest shore of Notre Dame Bay and successfully mined a small amount of copper ore before shutting down. He would have done better investing in the nearby Betts Cove property! It held a far larger and longer lived deposit.
Charles married Blanche Brown in St. John’s in 1883. She was the daughter of the “Comptroller of Her Majesty’s Customs” in Harbour Grace. It is worth noting that the Brown family introduced the Pinsents to New Zealand. Blanche had a sister (Fanny) and a brother (Douglas James Brown – yes it was a Scottish family). The former married in Newfoundland and went out to New Zealand in around 1865 and the latter married in New Zealand in 1876. Blanche’s niece (Mary Elizabeth Pinsent – daughter of Robert John Pinsent, the Magistrate in Harbour Grace) was to marry in Christchurch a few years later, in 1882).
Eleanor Vicars Pinsent’s 1898 gravestone.
Blanche was an impressive amateur artist and a bound album of her paintings – entitled “The Wild Flowers of Newfoundland” (dated 1882) was recently put up for sale on-line by “Attic Books” of London, Ontario. The couple had one surviving son (Earl Speare Pinsent) and two surviving daughters (Constance Douglas and Frances Isobel Pinsent). Sadly, a second daughter, Eleanor Vicars Pinsent died at the age of twelve.
The 1880s were a good time for the family: Robert John was appointed to the “Supreme Court” in 1880, Thomas Williams was busy collecting water rates in St. John’s and Charles Speare was working away at the “Union Bank”. The families met socially – on one occasion on board “H.M.S. Tenedos”, which was having an “At Home” (Evening Telegram: 18th January 1884). They all lived in the same world; they attended levees at Government House and elsewhere, made donations to the usual charities and took a strong interest in the Anglican Church.
Collection of portraits of Masons, including Charles Speare Pinsent.
In another article in the “Newfoundland Quarterly” in 1914-15 (a memorial or obituary [that includes the above photograph] of Charles), Mr. LeMessurier tells us that Charles was initiated a Mason in “St. John’s Lodge, No. 579” 1863 and that he worked his way up the hierarchy. He was “Worshipful Master” of the lodge in the early 1870s and “when Sir. W. V. Whiteway succeeded Mr. J. S. Clift as Grand Master of the “District Grand Lodge,” Mr. Pinsent became his Deputy, and after Sir William’s death he acted as District Grand Master until the appointment of the present incumbent of the office Mr. J. A. Clift”. Charles was “Past Deputy District Grand Master R. F.” the oldest “Past Master,” and the oldest member of St. John’s Lodge of the order when he died in St. John’s in 1914.
There were three Freemason Lodges in St. John’s Newfoundland around this time: St. John’s Lodge, affiliated with England; Tasker Lodge, affiliated with Scotland and – from 1876 onward, Shannon Lodge, which was affiliated with Nova Scotia. The “Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Convocation of the Royal Arch Chapter Masons of Nova Scotia [1876]” contains correspondence between its secretary and thirty-seven Companions of the “Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons of England” who prayed for dispensation to open a break-away Chapter in St. John’s aligned with them, to be called the Shannon Chapter. Charles Speare was one of the signatories. He was said to be its “Scribe.” Why the need for new Chapter, I do not know! The companions claimed to have separated from their parent Lodge on amicable terms. The Nova Scotians gave their dispensation for “Shannon Lodge, No. 9”. Charles was an active member throughout his life – although he was later affiliated with the over-arching “District Lodge”.
Advertisement from Evening Telegram, January 20, 1893
Back in St. John’s, Charles was “Secretary” of the “St. John’s Masonic Mutual Insurance Company Limited” and he kept the books into the 1900s. In January 1883 he was able to assure the members that they were in good shape. At the same time, he informed the shareholders that there had been three deaths since the last annual meeting – Brothers Pinsent (William Pinsent – a ship’s captain from the TEIGNMOUTH Branch of the family), Searle and Warren and their claims had been promptly paid (Evening Telegram: 18th January 1883). Two year’s later he was installed as “treasurer” of Shannon Chapter and he was one of several shareholders in the “Masonic Hall Joint Stock Co. Limited” to call on a Mrs. Pilot to thank her for her work in organizing a bazaar for them (Evening Telegram: 28th October 1886). Charles was appointed “Secretary” and later “Treasurer” of the “Masonic Hall Joint Stock Co.” (which included members of all the Lodges) and was, for several years, responsible for organizing its “Annual General Meetings” – which were usually held in January or February (e.g. Evening Telegram: 20th January 1893).
The early 1890s were a particularly busy time as the lodges were growing fast, however a great fire destroyed their Hall – along with much of the downtown core of St. John’s in 1892! The Masons decided it was time to build an impressive new Temple. Charles called several extraordinary meetings of the “Joint Stock Company” to discuss possible sites and plans for the edifice (Evening Telegram: 23rd September 1892 and Evening Telegram: 7th May 1894). The cornerstone was laid on 23rd August 1894.
Charles was among the presiding officers when Shannon Lodge installed its officers at the “Annual General Meeting” held in January 1893 (Evening Telegram: 20th January 1893), and – as “District General Secretary” and a “Past Master” – he was called on to assist the “Deputy Grand Master” (Rt. Hon. Sir William V. Whiteway) to install St. John’s Lodge’s slate of officers when it held its “Annual General Meeting” (Evening Telegram: 29th December 1892). One way or another, he performed these task many times in the years that followed.
All went well in St. John’s until December 1894, when the “Commercial” and then the “Union” banks collapsed. Charles (the “Manager”) and the directors of the latter were charged with issuing fraudulent financial statements in 1893 and 1894, and of issuing dividends while knowing full well that the bank would be unable to pay (Evening Telegram: 23rd July 1895). The “Union Bank” unquestionably did declare a six percent dividend “by order of the Board, Chas. S. Pinsent, Manager” on 6th December 1894 (Evening Telegram: 6th November 1894) – just days before the bank collapsed. The “Union” and “Commercial” banks failed on “Black Monday” 10th December 1894. Charles attempted to right the ship in the weeks following. When asked what caused the Union Bank to go down, he replied: “Because the Commercial had not opened its doors, because exchanges of that Bank had been dishonored, and because the Savings Bank had made a demand upon them for the specie; they were therefore compelled, in the interest of all to suspend” (Evening Herald: 2nd January 1895). Sadly, there was little he could do.
Notice of the charges were reported throughout England (Gloucester Citizen: 22nd July, 1895 etc.) and the Empire at large, including Australia (Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate: Tuesday 10th September 1895) and New Zealand (Daily Telegraph: 19th September 1895). The directors were released on $36,000 bail and two additional sureties of $18,000 each. “Manager Pinsent” was released on a somewhat less stringent bail terms; however, he agreed to testify and a few days later the Crown dropped his charges (Dundee Courier: Friday 2nd August 1895). This development was, I suspect, less well advertised!
Charles had had the misfortune to be appointed manager of the “Union Bank” in August 1894 (Newfoundland Daily News), just before the financial crisis which was essentially triggered by a London bank calling on the “Commercial Bank” for a payment. The cod fishery had been unreliable for several years and several well-known merchant firms that supplied out-port fishermen with credit through the fishing season (under the historic “truck” system – whereby payment was expected at the end of the season) were hurting and drawing heavily on the banks.
To make matters worse, some of the principal merchants were on the boards of the banks and they had borrowed heavily (sometimes questionably) to keep themselves afloat. The “North Adams Transcript” (a Massachusetts newspaper (23rd July 1895)) went so far as to say that they had appropriated between four and five million dollars to their own accounts. There were other contributing factors too. A great fire that had consumed half of St. John’s in 1892 had impacted trade and commerce and the Government had found itself on the hook for the bulk of the cost of constructing the railway across the Island.
The Crown case opened with testimony from bank staff designed to elicit how the bank’s statements had been determined in 1893 and 1894. The principal take-away being that the Mr. Goldie, the previous manager, was responsible for the former and that the 1894 balance, although signed by Mr. Pinsent, was largely based on Mr. Goldie’s work (Evening Telegram: 6th August 1895). Mr. Goldie had, perhaps conveniently, retired back to Scotland. The witnesses also testified as to the bank’s dealings with the various directors. However, this seemed to raise more questions than answers.
Mr. Pinsent’s evidence was given under oath over a period of almost a month, starting on Tuesday 20th August (Evening Telegram: 24th August 1895). He was subjected to direct and cross examination, followed by a second round of re-direct and re-cross examination. The Newfoundland newspapers covered the case in excruciating detail – up to and including analysis of the financial details. It is hardly surprising that even Charles found it hard to keep track: “In my statement of transfer of the shares, on Friday, I overlooked Sir Robert Thorburn’s account, as trustee. He had 18 shares as trustee, and sold in August 1887, to James Goldie, trustee, Twelve Shares; A. G. Smith, 3 shares; Sept. 1891, R. J. Moore, 1 share; C. Nichols, 2 shares. In another account he had 15 shares, as trustee, which he also sold in 1887 to A. G. Smith. Mr. Goldie never had any shares of his own” (Evening Telegram: 27th August 1895). A month later, “Mr. Pinsent Corrects His Previous Testimony: I wish to explain referring to the figures I gave yesterday respecting the liability of the Government of Newfoundland to the bank, on the 31st of May, 1893, and on the 10th of December, 1894. Instead of being indebted, as I said, to the bank on May 31st, 1893, in $73,484.55, they were in credit $112,183.40, owing to the credit balance at the customs, which I overlooked in Giving that Statement” (Evening Telegram: 25th September 1895).
One of the Telegram’s correspondents went so far as to say: “Dear Sir. — I notice so many alterations, amendments, discrepancies and counter-statements in Mr. Pinsent’s evidence re: “The Bank Scandal” that I should fancy, if the examination continues much longer, the poor, bewildered man won’t know whether he is standing on His Head or His Heels — what he has sworn to and what not. In fact I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if they got another dozen or two of lawyers on to him whether he wouldn’t be induced to swear that the bank is able to pay “one hundred cents on the dollar” and that it has never been smashed at all (Evening Telegram: 28th September 1895).
Eventually, it came time for the directors to respond – and several did by quoting Mr. Pinsent who, in truth, had not presented particularly damning evidence against them – at least with respect to their handling of the bank. For instance, The Hon. H. W. Harvey notes that “Mr. Pinsent, the principal Crown witness, testifies (Sept. 2) to the fact that it was the duty of the manager, and the practice also, to compile the annual statement from the balance-sheet of the books of the bank, and to submit it to the Directors with a recommendation as to the disposal of the funds, and to draw up the annual report. Mr. Pinsent states that he assisted Mr. Goldie in preparing the statement of 1893, and that Mr. Goldie suggested what appropriations should be made for bad and doubtful debts, dividends, and bonuses, and the amount to be taken from reserve to allow the usual dividend to be declared.” Elsewhere, “Referring to that statement of 1893, Mr. Pinsent says, I have no doubt now that it was a correct statement, from the information he had at the time. I Believe the Statement and report drawn up by Mr. Goldie to be true in every particular, and the directors adopted them without any alteration. (Evening Telegram: 12th November 1895). The trial came to an end and the directors were allowed to walk.
The damage had been done though, and Newfoundland was left without a reliable currency. Those beautiful “Union Bank” notes with Charles Speare Pinsent’s signature on them were now of questionable value. Eventually, the Bank’s $10.00 bill was reduced to an effective value of $8.00. Charles Speare must have regretted his appointment as “manager”; however he stayed as one of the bank’s trustees and helped wind it up.
The Canadian banks moved in and, over time, they helped to stabilize the economy. The financial crisis had brought down the Government in 1894 but, after a period of turbulence during which he was convicted of an unrelated act of corruption, the Rt. Hon. Sir William V. Whiteway returned to power on a “Pro-confederation” platform. Sir William was the most senior Freemason in Newfoundland at the time and Charles had been his friend and deputy for years, so it is perhaps not so surprising that he arranged for Charles Speare to be appointed “Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod” in 1898 (Evening Herald: Thursday 2nd April 1914). He was said to be an “accountant” living at #2 Devon Row, Ducksworth, in St. John’s at the time.
An undated and unattributed newspaper clipping made by Lady Pinsent (wife of Sir Robert John Pinsent, 1834 to 1898, see elsewhere) states: “his reign (at the bank) was all too short, but to him, at least, no blame can be attached for the unfortunate closure. His life was spent in the service of the Bank, and it seems a cold irony of fate when, having achieved the highest step, the rude awakening shattered his hopes and destroyed so promising a prospect.” It goes on to say, “Mr. Pinsent, as Usher of the Black Rod, will worthily maintain the honours, dignity and traditions of the office.” He was present in that capacity when the Legislature opened on 19th February 1902 (Western Star: Wednesday 26th February 1902) and served from then on until his death.
His reputation restored, Charles Speare and his wife Blanche were invited to attend an “at home” at Government House (Evening Telegram: 21st April 1904) and Blanche took at least one of the daughters (“Miss Pinsent” presumably Constance) on a trip to England. They arrived back in St. John’s from Liverpool on the “R.M.S. Buenos Ayrean” in September that year (Evening Telegram: 13th September 1904). Charles and Blanche also attended other social functions, with or without their growing children (Earl, Constance and Frances). For instance, there was that “Brilliant Ball” at Government House with British and French naval officers in attendance to which they took Constance (Evening Telegram: 13th September 1905). She was twenty-one years old. Similarly, there was the dance of “H.M.S. Calypso” a month later (Evening Telegram: 12th October 1905) and another “at home” at Government House the month after that (Evening Telegram: 17th November 1906). In August 1909, they attended the “Society Wedding” of Miss Muriel Winter to a Mr. Ryland of Warwickshire, England (Evening Telegram: 12th August 1909). One has to wonder if they knew of the DEVONPORT Pinsents’ link to the Rylands through their own English relatives. Sir Richard Alfred Pinsent had married Laura Proctor Ryland in August 1878. The Reverend Earnest Birchby, an English born “Clergyman” who was a “Curate” at St. Thomas’s Church in St. John’s was present at the service.
Wedding announcement for Constance Pinsent, Evening Telegram, July 13, 1911
Constance married Rev. Birchby at St. Thomas’ Church in St. John’s on 12th July 1911. She was given away by her father and Frances, her sister, was one of the bridesmaids. The attendees included just about anyone who was anyone in St. John’s (Evening Telegram: 13th July 1911) and the present list was extensive! The Pinsent family seem to have colluded: Lady Pinsent and her daughter Beatrice gave a set of silver teaspoons and sugar tongs; her son and daughter-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. F. W. H. Pinsent (Frank and Janet) gave a silver tea pot. They were living in England by then. Constance’s sister Frances gave a tea cloth and Mrs. R. H. Pinsent (Ann) a Japanese tea cosy. Her father and mother came up with a cheque – and an old blue china dish. Mr. Birchby, who had been on the staff of the Church, accepted a position in the United States shortly thereafter, and the couple moved to Pennsylvania. Their first son was born in the States in March 1913 (Indiana State Board of Health: Ancestry.com).
Meanwhile, after they came of age, Earl and Frances joined the rest of the family in attending the city’s social events in St. John’s. For instance, the whole family attended the “at home” held at Government House in October 1910 (Evening Telegram: 5th October 1910) and the Coronation Garden party held there the following June (Evening Telegram: 24th June 1911). Presumably Frances must have been the “Miss Pinsent” who accompanied Charles and Blanche to events like the reception at Government House held to honour the King’s Birthday on 3rd June 1913 (Evening Telegram: 4th June 1913). Her elder sister had married by then. In July of the following year, we find Frances and her brother Earl attending a garden party at “Government House” at which they were introduced to H.R.H. the Duke of Connaught (Evening Telegram: 17th July 1914). Charles had died and Blanche was probably down in the United States by then.
Frances had been educated at Bishop Spencer College in St. John’s – the girls equivalent of Bishop Feilds College. She passed her primary “Council of Higher Education” exams in 1903 (Evening Telegram: 8th September 1903) and her final exams five years later, in 1908 (Evening Telegram: 1st September 1908).
Frances seems to have been musical and was among a group of young ladies who gave a concert at the Asylum in May 1905 (Evening Telegram: 29th May 1905), and she assisted Miss Hutchings in putting on an entertainment for the children in the “Feild College Kindergarten” in December that year (Evening Telegram: 20th December 1905). She played the piano and received an intermediate grade certificate from “Trinity College of Music” in June 1906 (Evening Telegram: 16th June 1906) and a higher grade certificate from the same institution in June 1908 (Evening Telegram: 25th June 1908). Frances was artistic too. She seems to have also won a prize for silk embroidery at an Art Exhibition held in St. John’s in April 1908 (Evening Telegram: 9th April 1908) – and was given a handbag as a prize for her work at the end of the year (Evening Telegram: 24th December 1908). She was also an actress. The young people of the town put on a performance of “Miss Elizabeth’s Prisoner” at the Casino Theatre in December 1913. It was a romantic comedy set during the American war of independence. Frances played the part of “Molly” (Evening Telegram: 27th November 1913). What she had to say and how well she said it is not recorded.
When His Excellency the Governor invited the cadets onboard “H.M.S. Cornwall” to a dance at Government House the “Misses Pinsent” (Constance and Frances) were among the young ladies who were also invited (Evening Telegram: 8th October 1910).
Frances and her husband pose for a wedding photo, North Star (Darlington), January 1st, 1916
Frances Isobel married Paymaster Kenneth Edgar Badcock, R.N., of “H.M.S. Arethusa” during the “First World War.” He was from Bishop Auckland, in the north of England, and they married quietly there on 30th December 1915. The event was more subdued than her sister’s had been as Major Stanley E. Badcock had recently died in France. Kenneth, who was Secretary to Commodore Reginald Y. Tyrwhitt of the Light Cruiser Squadron, had received a “mention in the dispatches” for his conduct during the battle of Heliogland, when his ship had sunk the “Bleucher” (Evening Telegram: 15th January 1916). Sadly, his own ship “H.M.S. Arethusa” struck a mine and sank in the North Sea the following month. Presumably he was on shore at the time. One way or another, Kenneth survived. He was awarded the D.S.C. (Distinguished Service Cross) the following year – “though for what services we have not been informed” (Evening Telegram: 27th September 1927).
Charles was a committed Anglican who attended the biennial sessions of the “Dioceses of Newfoundland Church Synod” and was appointed to its “Education Committee” in 1891 (Evening Telegram: 4th July 1891) and the “Board of Directors of the Church of England College” in 1896 (Evening Telegram: 15th July 1896). He held the latter position for many years – frequently reading its biannual report at the Synod. The institution later became known as “Bishop Feild College” (Evening Telegram: 28th June 1900) and Charles’ son Earl went there in the early 1900s. What he thought of it when his father turned up in his official capacity on Speech day, I do not know.
In 1908, Charles also attended the Synod as a member of the “Lord’s Day Alliance”, an organization that was trying to extend religious reach into the Colony’s outports: “Mr. C. S. Pinsent referred briefly to the desirability of forming branches in the outports and read a letter from the organ of the Alliance, The Lord’s Day Advocate, on the prospects in England. In reply the Bishop welcomed the deputation and said it was a source of pleasure and gratification to receive it. He believed that our people are anxious that there should be no encroachment on the Sabbath rest” (Evening Telegram: 29th September 1908). At the following Synod, he was elected as “Lay Secretary”, while also reporting on College matters and lobbying for the “Alliance” (Evening Telegram 16th June 1910). A few days later he attended the Methodist Conference on behalf of the “Alliance” (Evening Telegram: 21st June 1910). He put in his last appearance in June 1912.
Masonic Temple, St. John’s, NL, via Heritage Newfoundland and Labrador
The bank failure was embarrassing but the Masons did not seem to be unduly concerned by financial or political scandals. The Masons’ new temple opened with great pomp 23rd January 1897. Members of all three lodges processed through the streets in full regalia and entered the temple carrying salt, corn, wine and oil and conducted the appropriate ceremonials (Evening Telegram: 23rd January 1897). Charles played his part – Bro. C. S. Pinsent carried the oil in a silver vase and responded to a toast proposed by Bro. Past Master Mott of Avalon Lodge to the “Representative of the Grand High Priest, R.A. Masonry, N.S.” at the dinner afterwards.
The Masons processed again on Jubilee Day in June that year. Around 300 dressed in full regalia marched through the streets to Government House where “District Grand Master” Pinsent delivered an address to be given to the Governor and sent to Queen Victoria. They then returned to the Temple where they lined up for photographs (Evening Telegram: 26th June 1897).
Charles kept up his routine handling of the Annual General Meetings of the “Masonic Joint Stock Co. Ltd.” and he either installed or assisted in the installation of officers of the three St. John’s Lodges throughout the early 1900s. In addition, he was also called upon to handle special events. The three lodges in St. John’s hosted 12 members of the “Grand Lodge of Massachusetts” in 1903 (Evening Telegram: 3rd September 1903) and a couple of months later the members of St. John’s Lodge received “a handsome cup that had been given to them by the visiting American brethren” (Evening Telegram: 29th December 1903).
Charles was getting on in years but there is no sign that he cut back on his Masonic duties. M. E. Comp. Black, who was visiting “Shannon” Chapter presented R. E. Comp. C. S. Pinsent, R.G.H.P. “with a beautiful gold jewel, the gift of the Grand Chapter”. In making the presentation, he made “complimentary reference to the services rendered by R. E. Comp. Pinsent during his long tenure of office” (Evening Telegram: 27th April 1906). Three years later, when the “District Grand Lodge” held its convocation in November 1909, “Past Master” C. S. Pinsent was “presented with an address and a piece of solid silver plate in recognition of his services as District Grand Master after the death of the D. G. M., Sir W. V. Whiteway (in 1908). Brother Pinsent has the honour of being the oldest Past Master of St. John’s Lodge, and he was also Deputy to the late District Grand Master 10 years. The presentation was made by District Grand Master Clift in a suitable speech, to which Mr. Pinsent made an appropriate reply” (Evening Telegram: 23rd November 1909). Sir William died in July 1908, just a few days before he was to officiate at the opening of yet another lodge, “Avalon Lodge,” and it fell to Charles, as his deputy (and later replacement) to perform the rites (Evening Telegram: 30th June 1908).
Announcement of Charles Speare Pinsent’s lecture, Evening Telegram, March 3rd, 1913.
The year 1913 was a particularly busy one for Charles. In March he gave the “Fourth Biennial Lecture” in connection with the “Tasker Educational Service.” According to the Evening Telegram: “Mr. Pinsent is the oldest Past Deputy District Grand Master of the English Lodges and it is a rather striking coincidence that the youngest Past Master, Mr. Walter Edgar, delivered the lecture last year. Mr. Pinsent is deeply versed in Masonic annals and history in Newfoundland, and no doubt, a large gathering, of the members of the Mystic Tie will assemble to hear the discourse and incidentally help the Tasker Educational Fund which has done so much for Education here, its beneficiaries belonging to all denominations. We feel sure the lecturer will be greeted by an audience large as to number, appreciative as to sentiment and confident as to the interesting matter they will hear” (Evening Telegram: 3rd March 1913).
Charles’s was getting on in years; however, he was still able to open a new Masonic Lodge at Botwood in Newfoundland on 22nd September 1911. During the opening, Bro. Pinsent gave an address which was printed in full in the Evening Telegram (22nd September 1911). In it, he touched on the origins and principles of Freemasonry and he specifically mentioned the two charities that the organization supported – the “Tasker Educational Fund” and the “Masonic Benevolent Fund”. He also commented on the lay-out of the “Masonic Hall,” and explained its symbolism with respect to the Freemason Hierarchy. When the lodge had been duly established, the officers were installed. In 1913, Charles was back in Botwood to see a new slate of officers installed in its new and “beautiful hall” (Evening Telegram: 23rd September 1913). Similarly, he was involved in the consecration of a new lodge on Bell Island in December 1913 (Evening Herald: 12th December 1913). Freemasonry was not exactly in the shadows. It was thriving.
In December 1913, “St. John’s Lodge No. 579” honoured Charles on the occasion of his 50th anniversary as a member of the lodge. He had been admitted on 5th December 1863 and had risen to the top ranks in the craft. The lodge presented him with a “handsomely illustrated address on silk” (Evening Herald: Saturday 6th December 1913). He was its oldest member. A week or so later, when the members of the Scottish affiliate, “Tasker Lodge No. 545,” met to honour their “Past District Grand Master”, John Cowan, they also elected Charles an “Honorary Member of Tasker Lodge” noting that: “Although a member of the English Branch, he presided over “Tasker Lodge” some years ago.” Mr. Pinsent replied to the many kind expressions of appreciation. The brethren then proceeded to the Banqueting Hall, and an enjoyable time was spent until midnight (Evening Telegram: 13th December 1913).
Painting of Charles Speare Pinsent in his Masonic attire.
Charles’s health had been failing and he had been forced to cancel a few engagements; nevertheless, his death – and the nature of it- still came as a shock to the whole community: “he left his home on Military Road for the Masonic Temple, as he rarely missed a function of the Order, and doubtless in the heavy snow and with the high wind his heart was overstrained, tho’ he contrived to open the door of the building and enter the hallway, but as he did he collapsed and death was instantaneous”. The masons contacted his family and his son Earl (who was also a mason) and others laid him out in the reading room covered by the Lodge Flag.
The evening’s event, the installation of Officers of yet another lodge – “Whiteway Lodge No.3541”) – was cancelled and, sometime after midnight the “Grand Master” of the lodge and other brethren took him home to his family (Evening Herald: 2nd April 1914 and Evening Telegram: 2nd April 1914). An “enlarged portrait of the late D.D.G.M. Brother Charles S. Pinsent, who died suddenly on April 1st 1914, when entering the Temple was unveiled. It is a peaking likeness of a brother beloved” was unveiled when the “Whiteway Lodge” again met to elect officers a year later (Evening Herald Saturday 3rd April 1915). The lodge, which was named after Sir William, had been formed in 1911.
Charles Speare Pinsent left his estate, worth $10,600, to his wife “for the benefit of herself and my child or children in such manner as she may deem desirable” and he appointed her as his executrix. The St. John’s Daily Star tells us that Blanche and her son Earl Speare Pinsent returned to St. John’s after spending the winter of 1914/1915 in the United States with Mr. and Mrs. Birchby and at least one of their children on 21st May 1915.
Rev. Ernest and Constance Birchby lived at Hughesville in Pennsylvania. He died there in 1922 and Constance and her children moved to Kensington, in Maryland. I am not sure why. When her mother Blanche went down for a visit in 1916, she predictably gave her son, Earl Speare, as her “home” contact and her daughter, Constance, as her intended destination (Canada-U.S. border Crossings: 1916). She returned from Halifax in dense fog on the “S.S. Florizel” on 27th July 1916 (Evening Telegram: 27th July 1916). Constance died in Maryland in 1927.
Blanche’s son, Earl Speare Pinsent, had qualified as a lawyer by the time he married Beatrice Dickinson in September 1916 (Evening Telegram: 7th September 1916). His life is discussed elsewhere. When he married and moved out of the family home, his mother sold off the furnishings at #53 Military Road in St. John’s (Evening Telegram: 2nd November 1916) and went to live with her daughter Constance (Mrs. Birchby) in the United States.
Blanche died in Hughesville in the United States and her body was returned to St. John’s for burial by rail (Evening Telegram: 23rd July 1918). She was buried with her husband at the “Church of England Cemetery” (St. John’s Daily Star: 24th July 1918). Earl arranged for her interment. Blanche left her estate to her three children, Constance, Earl and Frances. Her Will shows that most of her effects were still to be found at “Earl’s house”. Clearly, she had left them with him when she moved to the United States. Blanche gave her family portraits, her old china, the contents of a work box, and an old Bible that had (apparently) belonged to “Oliver Cromwell’s Secretary” to Constance, and her diamond ring and much of her silver to Frances. Her daughters split her financial assets. Earl received his father’s watch, bookcase and books, silver masonic tray and furniture (Newfoundland Probate Office). Her estate was valued at $7,760.41 after probate.
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Charles Pitt Pynsent (II) was the second to eldest son of Joseph William Pynsent by his wife Nellie (née Garland). He was born in Waverley, east of down-town Sydney in New South Wales. His father had a small dairy farm at Bondi. He grew up with three brothers and (eventually) seven sisters. In 1907, the family moved to a, presumably larger, dairy farm at Marrickville (Canterbury) south west of Sydney City Centre. Charles and his brothers worked on the farm and delivered milk as “carters”.
Charles Pitt’s father died in 1926 and Sydney’s Electoral Rolls show that in 1930 he was living with his mother and a younger brother, Thomas Ogden Pynsent (II) on Duke Street in Canterbury. Charles married Margaret (“Peggy”) O’Donnell there the following year.
The Electoral Rolls also tell us that Charles was a “milk carter” and that he was living with his wife on Chalmers Road in South Parkes, Strathfield, in 1936. Nevertheless, they seem to have found more permanent lodgings in Northcote Road, in Bankstown North, the following year and they were there until at least 1943. After the war, Charles and Margaret moved to Waterloo Road in Blaxland, Bankstown East. This was still their home in 1949. There was not much call for “carters” after the war and the Electoral Rolls tell us that Charles was now a “labourer”.
Charles Pitt and Margaret were still living on Waterloo Road in 1954. However, by then they had been joined by a Joseph William Pynsent. He was most likely a son who had been born shortly after the couple married in 1931 and had now come off-age. He was a “painter” – presumably of houses. Charles, Margaret and Joseph William were living on Jesmond Avenue, in Dulwich Hill, Parkes in 1963. Joseph William had become a “taxi-driver” by then. The three of them moved to Yanderra Street in the Condell Park suburb of Sydney a few years later -in 1968.
Charles Pitt Pynsent “aged 81 or 82, late of Campsie and Condell Park” died on 20th March 1975 (Sydney Morning Herald: 21st March 1975) and was buried among his forebears in the Catholic Mortuary at Rookwood Cemetery. His widow, Margaret, had moved to Biara Avenue in Campsie by 1980. According to the Sydney Daily Telegraph (24th May 2006): “Pynsent, Margaret (Peg) … aged 94, late of Greenacre” died on 20th May that year.
Charles Pitt and Margaret (née O’Donnell) seem to have had a daughter Marie Theresa Pynsent as well as their son Joseph William Pynsent (II). Marie Theresa married James Noonan in Sydney in 1995. Joseph William, for his part, married Lyn “Unknown”. I am not sure when or where. They seem to have had three children – a son and two daughters – who are, as far as I know, alive and well. Joseph William Pynsent, “aged 55, late of Oakdale, died on 22nd October 1987” (Sydney Morning Herald: 24th October 1987). He too was buried at Rookwood Cemetery.
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Charles Pitt Pynsent was the youngest son of Joseph Pinsent by his third wife, Ann (née Tucker). He was born at “Lower Jurston,” the small farm near Chagford in Devon that his father, a “ship and insurance broker” had retired to after leaving London. Joseph had indulged in a torrid correspondence with the great and powerful in Whitehall in the early 1820s, and he had retired after being soundly rebuffed! Later, the family moved to Joseph’s, larger, contiguous, farm at “Lettaford” which was across the parish boundary in North Bovey. Joseph continued his battle over political economy from there well into the 1830s.
Charles was eleven years old when his father died and he was brought up by his mother, Ann (née Tucker) and her family, and also his elder half-sister, Mary Anna Pinsent (Pynsent). Mary Anna later became a “school mistress” in the nearby parish of Manaton: “Manaton Preparatory School for Young Gentlemen: Established 1843: Conducted by Miss Pynsent, who receives and educates a limited number of boys, under ten years of age, whose happiness and improvement it is her constant endeavour to promote, by a strict but affectionate discipline. The locality is proverbially healthy and invigorating and the surrounding scenery picturesque and beautiful. The very highest testimonials from the parents of former pupils: Terms most moderate, and to be had on application to Rev. G. Jenkins, Manaton Rectory, Moretonhampstead” (Exeter Flying Post: Thursday 15th July 1859). Mary Anna never married. She died at Lettaford in 1875.
Map of Wellington, New Zealand.
The following biographies show that Charles Pitt Pynsent and his half-sister Elizabeth both spent time in Melbourne, in Australia. Elizabeth and her husband, William Francis Splatt went out to run a sheep station and Charles went out to work for them. He was still a young man and he was to marry there and later to return to England a rich man. He spent over twenty years living in England and traveling on the Continent with a cousin (Thomas Pynsent) and his wife. However, he never settled in England and he took his family out to Wellington, in New Zealand in 1880. The following is an extract from “Cyclopaedia of New Zealand: 1897.”
Sheep in Victoria, Australia.
“Mr. Charles Pitt Pynsent, whose house and grounds are situated in Hobson Street, was born in Devonshire in 1829 (actually 1824, RHP). His father, Mr. Joseph Pynsent was a Devonshire landed proprietor. His son (Charles Pitt Pynsent: RHP) went to Victoria when quite young. Mr. Pynsent engaged in sheep farming from his earliest days and on attaining manhood took up a squatting lease on the Wimmera River from the Victorian Government. His venture proving successful, he obtained an additional lease having a total area of land from two hundred to three hundred square miles of territory. His sheep numbered 60,000 and for some years he led a happy squatter’s life.
In 1854 he left Victoria and returned to England where he remained several years. Later he spent some time in various parts of the continent, including France, Belgium, Italy and Switzerland. Mr. Pynsentcame to New Zealand in 1880 on account of his health, arriving in Wellington on Christmas Day in that year per. S.S. Northumberland, commanded by Captain Babot, and has reason to be thankful for improved health during the period in which he has lived in the Empire City.”
The South Wonwondah Homestead.
Also, Jim Heard, in a history of “Wonwondah Station” that he presented at the Annual Dinner of the Western Victorian Association of Historical Societies on 20th March, 1999, (http://home.vicnet.au/-wvahs/wonwondah.htm) tells us that:
“Charles Pitt Pynsent and William Francis Splatt purchased Wonwondah Station and its livestock from Messrs Brodie and Cruikshank in August, 1845. The station then covered 140,000 acres (15 miles south of Horsham on Norton Creek in the Wimmera River area) and ran approximately 20,000 sheep. It was bordered by six other ill-defined “runs” and, as was common at the time, the boundaries were disputed, in 1847. Pynsent and Splatt were related by marriage (Splatt had married Pynsent’s step-sister). Both were influential in the founding of Horsham and later had streets named after them.
Charles Pitt Pynsent occupied Wonwondah Station in 1845 and, a few years later, (in either 1851 or 1852), he married Georgina Helen Ball, in Melbourne (a.k.a. Georgiana). He does not appear to have stayed in Australia very long. He returned to England around 1854. William Splatt was elected to the first Victorian Legislative Council in 1851. However after selling Wonwondah to John Quarterman in 1854, he also returned to England, where he became Mayor of Torquay and a Devonshire Magistrate for 28 years. He (William) died in 1893. In later life (1880), Charles Pitt, either for health reasons or “in pique because income tax was set at 6d in the pound” went out to New Zealand, where he died in 1903. His memorials include a Hotel in (Melbourne) Victoria, a street in Nairobi (Kenya), a waterfall in New Zealand and a small plant! “.
Not to quibble with Mr. Heard, but the Hotel in Victoria belonged to the AUSTRALIA branch of the “Pinsent” family and the small plant is probably the hybrid-saxifrage “Kathleen Pinsent” developed by an English gardener and named in honour of a member of the DEVONPORT branch in 1934. However, I digress.
The immediate question is: Why Charles Pitt Pynsent and not Charles Pitt Pinsent? It seems that Charles’s father, Joseph Pinsent, was obsessed with William Pitt, “The Great Commoner” under whose guidance Britain had been so successful during the “Seven Years War” (1756-1763). Joseph’s interest in Pitt was probably peaked by the fact that an eccentric baronet, Sir William Pynsent, had left his estates in Somerset (“Burton Pynsent”) and Wiltshire (“Erchfont” or “Urchfont”) to Pitt when he died in 1765. After receiving the bequest, Pitt abandoned the gentlemen in Commons and joined the aristocracy as William Pitt, “Earl of Chatham:” So much for the “Great Commoner.” The story is laid out in another part of this website: “The Pynsent Baronetcy: The Trials and Tribulations of a Litigious Family: 1687 – 1765.” Pitt built Burton Steeple, an imposing monument at “Burton Pynsent” in gratitude for the bequest. It still stands looking out over Sedgemoor. Joseph’s fascination with Pitt led him to name two of his children Joseph BURTON Pinsent and Charles PITT Pinsent.
The obsession was evidently contagious as Joseph’s nephew Thomas Pinsent – the relatively young but “senior” member of an upwardly mobile branch of the Pinsent family picked up on Joseph’s interested. Thomas checked the parish records to see if he could establish a link to the extinct baronetcy; however he failed and, to do him credit, he never claimed the link. He did, nevertheless, formally changed his name to “Pynsent” two days before his marriage to Jane Sparrow in 1842. Thomas convinced several of his cousins from Joseph’s marriages to Elizabeth Pynsent and Ann Tucker (see here and elsewhere) to change their surnames as well. This explains why we find “Charles Pitt Pynsent” running sheep in Australia in the 1850s.
Charles went out to Australia with his half-sister Elizabeth and her husband William Francis Splatt in 1841. Charles’s obituary notice, which was written in 1903, tells us that he went out after attending college in England. Perhaps he did, but he was only seventeen when he emigrated. Charles worked with Mr. Splatt and later took over as part owner and managing partner of his uncle’s sheep station at “Wonwondah.” This was when he came off age, in 1845.
The transfer is noted in the Geelong Advertiser, August 2, 1851.
The sheep run was officially transferred from W. F. Splatt to “Splatt and Pynsent” in August 1851 (Geelong Advertiser: 2nd August 1851. Mr. Splatt had recently been appointed to the Victoria Legislative Assembly and he needed Charles to manage the family’s sheep run at “Wonwondah.” A few years later, William Francis and his wife (Elizabeth, née Pinsent) returned to England. They had had enough excitement. They left Charles to manage their Marino sheep business. However, shortly before William left, the partners acquired another major sheep run at Lexington, near Horsham in Victoria.
Horsham in Victoria, Australia via Encyclopedia Britannica.
In “The Currency Lad” a book by T. S. Willis Cooke, there is a copy of a letter written by Mr. Splatt 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:
The Lexington Homestead.
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.” The previous owner had, evidently, over extended himself and as “It became impossible to get enough servants and farm hands as people headed for the diggings, 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 a ‘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. Lexington is approximately 95 km (59 miles) southeast of Horsham.
Pynsent Street, Horsham, via Google Maps.
Charles was twenty-eight years old. By 1856, Splatt and Pynsent held a total of 19 Licenses (including those at “Wonwondah”; “La Rose” and “Lexington”) near Horsham, in Victoria. They had made their mark in the district and their presence is memorialized in two of Horsham’s Street names, Splatt Street and Pynsent Street.
Charles Pitt Pynsent Esq. of “Wonwondah” married Georgina Helen, the second daughter of George Palmer Ball Esq. of St. Kilda, at St. Kilda, on 8th September 1852 (Melbourne Argus: 9th September 1852). She had been born in Tasmania. They married roughly a year after the discovery of placer gold at Ballarat, in Victoria, and while Melbourne was suffering from the shock of a full fledged gold rush.
This was the moment that Charles’s half-brother, Joseph Burton Pynsent – doubtless encouraged by his half-brother and Mr. Splatt – shut down his grain importation business in Bristol and went out to Australia to join them. He sailed for Australia with his son (Thomas Ogden Pynsent) on the “S.S. Great Britain” in November 1852. Interestingly, he took his young son but not his wife. Perhaps she had heard about the reality of frontier life in Victoria! Alternatively, their relationship may have been somewhat strained by then. Mr. Splatt helped Joseph Burton,“Burton” as he was commonly known, set up in business as a “general merchant”(“Burton Pynsent & Co.”) with a store on Elizabeth Street in Melbourne and a branch outlet at “the Diggings”. It was one of the last things That Mr. Splatt did before returning to England with his wife Elizabeth. He left his two brothers-in-law to fend for themselves. Joseph Burton’s (very interesting) life is documented elsewhere in this website.
Charles and Georgina had a daughter, Frances Elizabeth Pynsent in 1953, while living at Lexington House at “Wimmera” (Bristol Mercury: Saturday 31st December 1853). Perhaps being a father was one of the reasons why Charles decided to follow his half-sister and her husband back home to England the following year. In 1854, Charles and Mr. Splatt (his silent partner) offered up 24,000 sheep for sale when “depasturing” Lexington: “These sheep have never been diseased and are considered second to none in this colony for weight of fleece and carcases” (Geelong Advertiser and Intelligencer: Saturday 1st April 1854). One sold sheep by the thousand in those days!“Lexington” was, of course, just one of their runs. They still had “Wonwondah”.
In a retrospective look at the life of a Mrs. Pickford, who died in 1912, the Horsham Times (Tuesday 12th November 1912) reflects on how she and her husband had been enticed out to “Wonwondah” by Splatt and Pynsent in 1851/2. It was shortly after their marriage in Bristol. Her husband had previously worked for Charles’s half-brother Burton Pynsent in Melbourne and he had agreed to come out as a station hand while she became a cook. They stayed on at “Wonwondah” after it was sold to Quartermain and Rutherford. Conditions were a little rough in those days. Mrs. Pickford recollected having to cook breakfast for the famous bushranger “Captain Moonlight”.
News clipping describing the hotel property, now available for sale. The Argus, December 17, 1874.
I am not sure precisely when Charles left for England with his young wife and daughter (Frances Elizabeth Pynsent) but it was probably in 1854 – about three years after the current Homestead was built. Charles was a rich man by then and he still owned property in Victoria when he left. He owned a Hotel at Craigieburne near Melbourne. Perhaps he thought he might return someday.
Charles P. Pynsent continues to list his property for sale. The Argus, December 22, 1874.
Back in England, Charles became a Fellow of “Queen’s College” Cambridge on 22nd January 1855. Later that year, while visiting his half-sister, Elizabeth Splatt (née Pynsent), in Gittisham, in Devon Charles Pitt prepared a Will. It is now in the Devon Records Office. In it, he refers to his wife, Georgina Helen Pynsent and his sisters, Mary Anna Pynsent, Anna Lucretia Pynsent and Harriet Cordelia (Partridge) – with whom he must have only recently reconnected after his time in Australia. Charles was still a relatively young man when he prepared the will and it included provision for as yet unborn children. He requested that the various bequests and legacies be paid out of his estates in Craigieburne. This document was to be superseded by a will he wrote in Wellington, New Zealand, in 1899.
Charles had another daughter (Mary Emily Pynsent) while staying with his half-sister Elizabeth. However, I gather she died young (personal correspondence sent to my father Robert John Francis Homfray Pinsent). I do not have the details.
Charles Pitt Pynsent and William Francis Splatt dissolved their partnership as the principal “stockholders at Wonwondah and Lexington in the Colony of Victoria” on 9th June 1856 (Government Gazette) and they went their respective ways. Charles had his signature witnessed by his cousin, Thomas Pynsent, of “Corfield House” in Weston-super-mare. Like his cousin, he too was by then a very rich man.
Charles Pitt Pynsent appears in the 1861 census.
Thomas Pynsent had sold the family farm at “Pitt”, in Hennock a few years earlier and invested the money. He thought of himself as a “gentleman of leisure”. His life is described elsewhere. However, Thomas and his wife (Jane née Sparrow) and young children enjoyed traveling and they lived on the Continent for a while. Charles and Georgina (née Ball) made several trips with them and also spent time abroad. They had two daughters: Frances Elizabeth Pynsent who was born in Melbourne in 1853 and Mary Emily Pynsent who was born in Devon in 1855. They added a son Charles Joseph Pynsent in Bonn, Germany, in 1858 and on their return to England they settle in Hove, in Sussex and had their third and fourth daughters Marion Haslewood Pynsent and Florence Edith Pynsent in 1860 and 1862 respectively. When the Census takers caught up with the family while they were there in 1861, Charles said he was a “fund holder”: read independently wealthy.
The two families seem to have been particularly fond of Italy and they even had some Italian investments. William Francis Splatt of London and Charles Pitt Pynsent of Turin were both elected onto the Board of Directors of the “Italian Irrigation Company” (Canal Cavour) – which was based in Turin. This was after a managerial shake up in 1866 (London Daily News: Friday 23rd November 1866).
Charles and Georgina had a second son, Robert Burton Pynsent in Heidelberg, in Germany in 1869. Their first-born son, Charles Joseph Pynsent, was to die in Stuttgart the following year and Robert Burton was to become his father’s principal heir. According to the New Zealand Observer, Charles had a third son as it shows “the engagement of Mr. W. Pynsent, son of Mr. C. P. Pynsent, Hobson Street, and Miss Violet Deane, daughter of Major Deane, of England.” (New Zealand) Observer, Volume XXIII, Issue 21, 7th February 1903. However, this is wrong and other papers show that it was Robert Burton Pynsent who became engaged to Violet Deane. The Graphic Magazine: 31st July 1903, is right in referring to “Mr. R. Pynsent, the only son of C. P. Pynsent …” Robert Burton never actually married Violet – as far as I know. Interestingly, the announcement came a few months before Charles Pitt Pynsent died in Wellington, in July 1903, and Robert, who had been in London, had promptly gone out to New Zealand to handle his father’s estate. Perhaps that is what ended the engagement. Robert Burton Pynsent is the only son mentioned Charles Pitt’s will.
Charles’s eldest daughter Frances Elizabeth was (either formally or more-likely informally) “adopted” by her uncle and aunt (Mr. and Mrs. Splatt), and she was living with them in Devon when she married Francis Hawkins Hathaway (Captain of the 62nd Regiment), in Ermington, in 1872 (Belfast Newsletter: Monday 13th May 1872). Unfortunately, she died in November the following year. Perhaps as yet another a casualty of childbirth.
By 1874, Charles Pitt realized that he would not be going back to Australia, so he put his property there up for auction. It included “1,800 acres of first class grazing land; together with The Craigieburn Hotel and a Cottage Residence.” His agents, Messrs. Dalgety, Blackwood and Co., offered the land to the public in three lots; the grazing land; the hotel (with its frontage onto the Sydney Road) and the cottage residence area where there was valuable land “having a large frontage to the Sydney road and the road running to the Broad meadows road: This is a splendid block of land for pastoral and agricultural purposes. Being high ground, fine views are obtainable from the spot, on which stands a comfortable brick and wood cottage, gardens, and outbuildings. This property is worthy of a first-class residence being erected thereon, and converted into a retreat by any one engaged in city pursuits fond of a country life.” It was said to be adjacent to the railway station and within 40 minutes of “town” (Melbourne Argus: Saturday 19th December 1874). The lots were sold by auction at the Mart, 82 Collins Street, Melbourne, at 12.0 o’clock on Monday 11th January 1874. I hope he got a good price for them. The land would be worth a fortune today.
For some reason, Charles decided to live in New Zealand instead of Australia. He and Georgina and their family (Mary Emily Pynsent, Marion Haslewood Pynsent, Florence Edith Pynsent and Robert Burton Pynsent) emigrated and settled there in 1880. The traveled out on the “S.S. Northumberland” “First Saloon Class” and arrived in Wellington in November 1880 (Australian and New Zealand Gazette: Saturday 30th October 1880). Mary Emily Pynsent may have followed her parents out, as I have her travelling alone between Melbourne and New Zealand in September 1881 (Melbourne Argus: Thursday 8th September 1881). On arrival, Mary seems to have advertised for a position as a companion or house-keeper for a Lady, “salary not so much an object as a comfortable home” (Lyttelton Times: 23rd September 1881). Why she was not welcome in the family home, I do not know! Perhaps she just felt the need for independence. There are a few references for a Miss E. Pynsent – probably Mary Emily but possibly Florence Edith – attending concerts and playing the pianoforte in 1884 (New Zealand Mail: 22nd February and 6th July 1884), and the Misses Pynsent are referred to after the death of their married sister, Florence Edith, so they may have both been around. Nevertheless, I do not know what happened to Mary Emily. She seems to have married or died by 1888.
C. P. Pynsent lists his property to let in the Evening Post, February 18, 1888.
Charles and Georgina settled into a large house called “Clifton” on Hobson Street. It was near the main railway station on the north side of Lambton Harbour. The couple seem to have had only one daughter in residence by the time they let their house (Evening Post: 18th February 1888) and returned to London for a visit in May 1888 (Auckland Star: 4th May 1888). The house may have been a hotel when it was first built. It was an impressive building: “containing 10 rooms, besides bath, scullery larger pantry and storeroom, the superior residence of C. P. Pynsent, Esq. Grounds tastefully laid out, natural stream, water, ferns, shrubbery, tennis lawn, kitchen garden etc. For picturesqueness almost unequaled” (Lyttleton Times: Wednesday 22nd February 1888). Clearly, it had a lovely view out over the water.
Ironically, the best description of the garden is given in the New Zealand Graphic on 6th December 1911 – several years after Georgina left for England: : “One of the few beautiful gardens left in Wellington was the scene of a very enjoyable party on Thursday when Mrs. Fitzherbert and her daughters entertained their friends. In addition to a fine lawn overlooking the bay there is—in the Pynsent place which Mrs. Fitzherbert has been occupying for some time—a most picturesque gully with winding paths, where fern trees, native bush and flowering rhododendrons all grow thickly. So, the surroundings are ideal for a garden party. Afternoon tea, strawberries and cream, and teas on the lawn were much appreciated, and there was some inspiriting music from a string band. …”. It sounds lovely.
How long the family intended to be back to England for in 1888, I do not know. However, Charles made his way back to New Zealand on the “S.S. Tainui” in March 1890 (Auckland Star: 14th March 1890). Perhaps he had his family with him, however, if so they are not mentioned and they may have returned on another ship. The local Newspapers frequently refer to one, or some, of the Pynsents traveling by ship to the South Island or Australia. However, it is not always clear who they are referring to.
Charles, Georgina and family were rich and they very quickly slotted into the “fashionable” social scene in Wellington – which is at the south end of the North Island of New Zealand. Charles attended “levees” given at Government House to honour the Queen’s birthday almost annually in the 1880s and 1890 (New Zealand Mail: 27th May 1882) and Mrs. Pynsent and her two daughters (Florence and Marion), who were musical, attended attended concerts together (New Zealand Mail: 22nd February 1884). Florence Edith moved to Invercargill after she married in July 1884, but her sister Marion stayed on in Wellington and socialized with her mother both before and after she married in 1893. They attended musical, and other, events together.
The Pynsents built up a list of “fashionable” friends and acquaintances, and were invited to countless gardens parties and other social functions. Hardly a week went by when there was not some social function; a reception at Government House perhaps (New Zealand Mail: 17th June 1893), an Oriental Bazaar (New Zealand Mail: 12th September 1884), an “At Home” given at Bishop’s Court given by Mrs. Wallis (New Zealand Graphic: 19th October 1895) a “garden party” for the Diocesan Synod given by Mrs. Tolhurst (New Zealand Mail: 15th October 1896), a “Fairwell Conversazione” given for the Earl and Countess of Glasgow at the end of their term of office as Governor (New Zealand Graphic: 13th February 1897 or an afternoon aboard the “H.M.S. Wallaroo” when it was in port (New Zealand Graphic: 14 February 1903).
These social events were, in the 1890s at least, carried out under the watchful and critical eye “Ignota” and “Violet” in the New Zealand Mail and “Ruby”, “Ophelia” and occasionally “Meye” and “Clarisa” who wrote letters to “Dear Bee” – the society correspondent at the New Zealand Graphic. They focused on the ladies’ dresses and for the most part made no mention of the their male partners. Presumably they were there, some of the time. At the dances, at least. The Wellington dress-makers must have made a good living. Mrs. Pynsent, I gather, favoured black and mauve.
Mrs. Pynsent seeks a new employee in the Evening Post, January 31, 1887.
Georgina ran the household and placed numerous advertisements in the local papers pleading for “experienced house and parlour maids” (Evening Post: 31st January 1887 etc.) or for a “respectable young woman as cook” (Evening Post: 22nd April 1896 etc.). Good servants seem to have been hard to come by.
Charles and Georgina returned to England periodically. For instance, they left Tilbury en route for Melbourne on the “R.M.S. Oruba” on 20th November 1891. On this occasion, they were traveling with one of their daughters (The Colonies and India: 21st November 1891). They may well have been back in England to see their son Robert Burton who would have been settling into his law studies at Cambridge (The Times: 12th October 1891).
Georgina’s daughters fulfilled the social obligations of their social class and position. They contributing to concerts and did charitable work – while their mother kept an eye open for suitable husbands. Marian painted and received a bronze medal for her work in October 1888 (Evening Post: 20th October 1888).
Charles, meanwhile, bought property in down-town Wellington and at one point acquired a farm. However, he seems to have remained a “property owner” at heart. He went to Melbourne in Australia in January 1887 (Otago Daily Times: 1st February 1887 etc.) and Lyttleton, on the east coast of the South Island of New Zealand in December that year (Press: 21st December 1887, etc.). He traveled on his own. What these and other trips were about, I am not sure; however I suspect they were business related. Charles Pitt seems to have handed over the running of the farm he bought to his son Robert Burton in around 1894 – shortly after he returned from England with his law degree. It was probably an inducement for him to stay.
C. P. Pynsent is listed as a member of the jury in the Evening Post, January 20, 1886.
Quite early in his life in Wellington, Charles was appointed to the “Music and Ceremonial Committee” when the Wellington elite met to discuss the forthcoming “New Zealand Exhibition” (Evening Post: 3rd August 1885). Among other civic duties, Charles was empaneled as a juror for the Supreme Court hearing of “Sinclair v. Hornby” in January 1886 (Evening Post: 20th January 1886). It was a libel action, in which the plaintiff sought to recover £1,000 from the proprietor of the “Malborough Times”, claiming that there were inaccuracies in an article it had published regarding a land transaction.
Charles and Georgina made the appropriate donations to hospitals (Evening Post: 25th June 1897) and social service charities (Evening Post: 13th June 1903). They were both interested in the “Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals” and Charles served on its founding committee, in October 1884 (Evening Post: 4th October 1884). He remained actively involved in it for several years. The “SPCA” examined numerous cases in and around Wellington, including one in which a man called Smith kept a mutant sheep as an exhibit. It had six legs, two of which grew out of its abdomen and were eight inches long and covered with sores. The vet said that he did not have the authority to kill the animal and he recommended the committee prosecute the owner (Evening Post: 3rd June 1885). Other cases were more predictable and less noteworthy. Charles dropped off the committee in the 1890s but Georgina still contributed to its annual subscriptions (Evening Post: 27th April 1897 etc.).
Florence Edith Pynsent, Charles’s youngest daughter, married Augustus Carr, a bank manager at Invacargill in 1884. One of her sisters were bridesmaids: “The bride wore a dress and square train of ivory white brocaded and plaid satin, trimmed with Brussels lace and wreaths of orange blossoms, also a gold necklet and diamond locket, a gift from the father of the bridegroom. The bridesmaids appeared in cream coloured suvat dresses and sapphire blue velvet bonnets, trimmed with pearls and hyacinths, while each also wore a brooch, a present from the bridegroom” (Evening Post: 17th July 1884).
The commemorative stained glass window appears in the Evening Post, February 13, 1892.
Sadly, Florence died in 1889. Her parents placed a stained-glass window to her memory in St. Paul’s Cathedral, in Wellington (Evening Post: 13th February 1892).
Florence’s sister Marion Haslewood Pynsent studied at the “Wellington School of Design” in 1886 and 1887, and (as noted above) was awarded a bronze medal for a painting in October 1888 (Evening News: 20th October 1888). She picked up another bronze the following year for a picture of foliage (Evening Post: 15th March 1890). Her father was one of many who contribution to the “Building Fund” for the “New Zealand Academy of Fine Art” (Evening Post: 7th December 1892).
On the back, the painting reads: From window in Princess Hotel at top of Molesworth St w. Mrs Bannantyne’s later Pynsents in Hobson St. “Port Nicolson, New Zealand. Watercolour by Arthur Thomas Bothamley. [ca 1869]. Ref: A-032-016. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand.”
The Pynsent household on Hobson Street acquired a telephone in 1892 (Evening Post: 15th June 1892) – which must have been a boon to Marion and her mother (Mrs. and Miss Pynsent) who seem to have been ever-present on the social scene throughout the 1890s. The local papers make mention of the events they attended and, not infrequently, of the clothes they wore. For instance, Mrs. Pynsent wore a “prune” coloured creation and Miss Pynsent a “green and gold” dress at Lady Glasgow’s reception at Government House in June 1892 (Observer: 2nd July 1892). On other occasions, they attended concerts (Manuwatu Herald: 11th February 1896) and “At Homes” and played croquet (Press: 22nd February 1896).
Charles attended some of these events but he also had other interests. It is perhaps worth noting that when Mr. and Mrs. and Miss Pynsent attended a “Birthday Ball” at Government house in May 1893. There was also a single man named Mr. B. Goring in attendance (Evening Post: 25th May 1983). Barry was not single for long – Barry Yelverton Goring married Marion in December that year . The wedding is described in detail in an article in the New Zealand Mail (8th December 1893).
Barry and Marion Goring had their first child in November 1894: “Quite a large gathering assembled at Mr. C. P. Pynsent’s house last Friday afternoon by invitation of Mr. and Mrs. Barry Goring, who are staying there, the occasion being the christening of Mr. and Mrs. Goring’s baby, who appeared in very fine robes, and amid much state, received the congratulations of its numerous friends. The cake was cut and the health of the infant drunk with champagne: the name chosen being “Dorothy Edith” (Manuwatu Herald: 24th November 1894).
Marion and her mother remained close and they frequently attended social functions together. However, it is worth noting that Barry’s mother was still around and two there were two “Mrs. Gorings” in Wellington. Fortunately the sharp eyed correspondents reporting to the press frequently, but not invariably, differentiated between the two. Mrs. Pynsent and Mrs. B. Y. Goring attended events together. For instance, they attended the “Annual Spring Flower Show” in November 1894 (Manawatu Herald: 17th November 1894).
Mrs. Goring (as Marion was then) had two daughters. Dorothy Edith Goring was born in 1894 and Barbara Yelverton Goring was born in 1897. Sadly, the newspapers tell us that Marion “who has been in delicate health for some time past, died yesterday whilst on a visit to Mrs. Russell, at Palmerston North” She died in 1898 (Evening Post: 14th December 1898). Marion’s death left Barry Goring with two very young daughters and Charles Pitt and Georgina determined to look after them. From here on, Georgina was also on the look out for “nursery governesses” (Evening Post: 17th October 1904).
Charles Pitt Pinsent’s gravesite at Karori, New Zealand.
Charles died in Wellington on 31st July 1903 and was buried in Karori Cemetery after a service in St. Paul’s Cathedral (Evening Express: 28th August 1903). He was seventy-eight years old and, as the following obituary shows, an “old time” pioneer in the eyes of many Australians: “News has been received of the death in New Zealand of Mr. Charles P. Pynsent who was one of the earliest pioneers of the Wimmera. The name of the deceased (has) been immortalized in Horsham by the naming of “Pynsent Street” in honour of deceased. The late Mr. Pynsent, though he left this district about 54 years ago is still very favorably remembered by some of the pioneers, including Mrs. Healey, of Hamilton Street, Horsham. That lady and her late husband and two children lived at Mr. Pynsent’s Wonwondah station for some time, and Mrs. Healey speaks in highest terms of praise of deceased, who was a justice of the peace in the Wimmera “He was a real good, honourable man” remarked Mrs. Healey when spoken to about Mr. Pynsent’s demise. Upon his leaving the district, Wonwondah station sold to Mr. Rutherford. A brother-in-law of the deceased was Mr. Splatt, whose name is also perpetuated by a street in the borough being named in his honour. At one time Pynsent held between 200 and 300 square miles under lease from the Victoria Government” (Horsham Times: Friday 7th August 1903”.
Charles Pitt Pynsent’s last will and testament in 1903.
Charles Pitt Pynsent had written his “last” will and testament in 1899. He appointed his wife Georgina, his son Robert Burton and a local solicitor, Gifford Marshall as his executors. Robert was in England at the time, but he hurried home. He arrived in Wellington on 17th September 1903 (Evening Post: 17th September 1903). The will was probated in Wellington in August 1903 and it was then sent to England, where Charles have also held assets, for ratification.
Charles Pitt Pynsent asked that his executors use his investments to generated one thousand pounds a year of annual income for his wife, and allot money for his granddaughters’ (Dorothy Edith Goring and Barbara Yelverton Goring) education – the amount to be taken out of their respective twelve thousand pound legacies on their coming of age. Georgina was to have his house and garden in Hobson Street, in Wellington, for life, and, as for the rest of his real and personal estate, including his farm near Wanganui (now known as Whanganui), it was to go to his son, Robert Burton Pynsent (Probate Records: Wellington Court: 1903 P8439/03-P8500/03).
Mr Pynsent’s garden. Drawing by Medley, Mary Catherine. [ca 1893]. E-346-2. [Medley, Mary Catherine] 1835-1922 :Sketch book. Ref: E-346-2-010/011. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand.
The Supreme Court of New Zealand granted probate on the 6th day of August 1903 (The Times: 12th January 1904). Charles had his estate in New Zealand valued at £104,097 (Wanganui Herald: 1st December 1903). A tidy sum! The will was processed in London on 2nd February 1904. Charles’s effects in England amounted to £32,797 16s 11d. A later entry states that probate was granted to Robert Burton Pynsent, “barrister at law” in London, 15th February 1904.
Georgina was left on her own with her son-in-law and her granddaughters and, as it was now clear that her son Robert had decided to stay on in England as a “barrister”, she decided to join him. If she took granddaughters back, they could get a “proper” English education. Presumably Barry agreed to all this. He also made plans to move to England. Georgina took the girls back, quite possibly to check out schools, around the time of King Edward VII’s Coronation. It was a two-stage journey in those days. You took a steamer from Wellington to Sydney and then took another from Sydney to London. The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser (Saturday 8th March 1902) tells us that Mr. R. Pynsent, Mrs. Pynsent and Misses D. and B. Goring had taken the Imperial German Mail Steamer “Bremen” from Sydney to London in March 1902. Similarly, the Lyttleton Times: Monday 15th December 1902 shows that “Mrs. Pynsent and two children” bound for New Zealand had recently arrived in Fremantle on the “S. S. Oruba.”
New Zealand press announced that: “Mrs. Pynsent leaves very shortly for England, where she will reside for the next few years to enable her grandchildren (to live with?) her – whilst they are being educated” in March 1905 (Otago Witness: 15th March 1905). Georgina rented out the family home on Hobson Street and the family left for Sydney en route to London on the “S.S. Moeraki” (Evening Post: 23rd March 1905).
When Georgina and her granddaughters said good by to Wellington, they may not have wished to admit that they would not be back. “Mrs. Pynsent and the Misses Goring leave by the Moeraki for Sydney on. route for England (writes our Wellington correspondent). They travel by the North German line, and will be away for two years, probably making their headquarters at St. Leonards” (New Zealand Graphic: 1st April 1905)..
Georgina enrolled her granddaughters at “Cheltenham Ladies College” (Free Lance: 31st March 1906) and took a house in the town while they were to be there. What the girls’ father (Barry Goring) made of it, I am not sure. I think he went with them as he had siblings of his own living in England. The children were by no means the first “Pynsents” to go to “Cheltenham Ladies College”. Charles’s cousin Thomas Pynsent had sent his daughters there in the 1850s. One of them later married into the Willoughby family and stayed on in the Cheltenham area. She had sent her daughter there as well. The Willoughby’s were connected to the DEVONPORT Branch “Pinsents” by marriage and they had sent their children there too. Presumably the Willoughbys and Pinsents recognized the Gorings among their many cousins.
As far as I know, Georgina never went back to New Zealand. She was a widow, living on her “own means,” looking after her (then) teenage grandchildren, Dorothy and Barbara Goring, with the help of four servants when the Census takers came knocking on her door in Hunsdon Road, in Torquay, in 1911.
During the war, Georgina moved to Bexhill in Sussex – where she, somewhat unfortunately, fell afoul of the blackout restrictions in October 1915. Evidently, there was light showing through a skylight. Georgina “Selina” (as she was named in the newspaper) was fined 10s 6d for the infraction (Bexhill on Sea Chronicle: Saturday 2nd October 1915). The following April, Mrs. Pynsent donated a “puzzle” to the local hospital which was, by then, dealing with “sick and wounded soldiers of the expeditionary forces” (Bexhill on Sea Chronicle: 1st April 1916).
Georgina Pynsent’s funeral is reported in the Bexhill-On-Sea Chronicle on November 4, 1916.
Sadly, Georgina Helen Pynsent died at “The Lodge” Buckhurst Road in Bexhill in October 1916. Her funeral was well attended by family and friends. Her two granddaughters, Dorothy Edith Goring and Barbara Yelverton Goring were there, and her Willoughby and Reynolds-Reynolds relations from Cheltenham sent wreaths (Bexhill on Sea Chronicle: Saturday 4th November 1916). Georgina’s son, Robert Burton Pynsent was granted probate of effects valued at £3,735 15s 8d. Robert Burton sold the family’s home and other property in New Zealand and stayed on in England – where there was more scope for his legal training. His nieces also stayed on in England. Barbara married into the Lambert family in 1922. Dorothy Goring, however, never married. She corresponded with my father in the 1960s.
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Notice signed “Pinsent & Pinsent” seeks creditors for a bankrupt company. Western Star, February 6, 1948.
Charles Douglas was the only son of Earl Speare Pinsent and Augusta Beatrix (née Dickinson). He was born in St. John’s Newfoundland, and attended “Bishop Feild (sic) College” – where he developed a passion for ice-hockey and other sports. On leaving school, he went to “King’s College” in Windsor, Nova Scotia. The College had been affiliated with “Dalhousie University,” in Halifax, since a fire had destroyed much of its own infrastructure in 1920. Charles Douglas (“Douglas” or “Doug” Pinsent) studied law and, in October 1937, returned to St. John’s to article under his father. He was called to the bar in St. John’s in October 1943 (Daily News: 19th May 1953). Father and son practiced law together under the title of “Pinsent and Pinsent, Solicitors” of Royal Bank Chambers, Water Street, St. John’s. The partnership was later expanded to include Mr. W. G. Adams; however, the firm of “Pinsent, Pinsent and Adams” (Daily News: 15th April 1953) only lasted for about a month as Douglas died young. His father and Mr. Adams carried on.
“Mr. Douglas Pinsent” became engaged to Olive Drew in Calgary in December 1943 (Calgary Herald: Thursday 16th December 1943) and they, evidently, planned to marry in St. John’s on 4th January 1944; however, there is nothing to suggest that they did. They seem to have thought better of it. A letter that Douglas’s aunt Annie (nee March) wrote to by father and mother (Robert John Francis Homfray and Ruth McKechnie Pinsent) in 1946 implies that the marriage never took place. She refers to “Douglas who is not married yet – though he took several steps in that direction about a year ago.” When it came to it, Charles Douglas married Madeline Waterman in Seattle, in Washington State, in December 1948 (Washington, U.S., Marriage Records: Ancestry.com). What he had been doing out west or where he met her, I do not know! They had a single child, a son, Kenneth Pinsent, in April 1953.
Douglas was “Secretary of the St. John’s Progressive Conservative Party” and decidedly alarmed by post-war reports that the British Government hoped to push Newfoundland into confederation with Canada. Doug and his father were among “(T)he undersigned members of the Bar of Newfoundland” who signed a cable sent to the British Government insisting that the only choice that could be made for Newfoundland was between “Responsible Government” and “Commission Government,” and that only once that decision had been made and the financial implications been assessed, could confederation be considered (Western Star: Friday 13th February 1948). Despite this, “Confederation with Canada” was a third option placed on the “Confederation Referendum” when it was held and it was chosen. Newfoundland joined Canada on 31st 1949.
Doug ran as a “Tory” (Conservative) candidate in the Fortune-Hermitage riding when Newfoundland held its first provincial election two months later and – like many other “Tory” candidates – lost by a considerable margin to a well-known, and highly regarded “Liberal” opponent. The Conservatives election campaign seems to have been poorly managed! (“Canadians at Last: The Integration of Newfoundland as a Province”: by Raymond B. Blake, 1994) and Mr. Smallwood became the first “Premier” of Newfoundland and Labrador. It was he who was to join Douglas on the head table at a “Rotary Club” banquet given to honour the “President of the Rotary International” in 1950. Douglas was the “President of the St. John’s Lions Club” at the time. He attended with his wife, Madeleine.
Douglas was an all-round athlete. He had played on the “Feildians” inter-collegiate and Senior Hockey teams between 1934 and 1939, and for the St. John’s “Royals” from 1940 to 1948. He was president of the “St. John’s Hockey League” when he died, and was well known in St. John’s for promoting and developing a variety of sports in the province. He helped found the “Riverdale Tennis Club” and was a tireless member of the “Regatta Committee”. He was appointed president of the “Lions Club” and he was instrumental in getting the city a new ice-rink after their old one burnt down (Daily News: 19th May 1953). He wrote an article, entitled “Let’s Build a Stadium,” that was published in the October 1950 edition of “The Magazine of Newfoundland.” Two years earlier, the “National Film Board of Canada” had filmed him escorting Canada’s 1948 Olympic Figure Skating Champion Barbara Ann Scott as she laid the corner stone of the new stadium in June 1950. It can still be found on-line.
Charles Douglas Pinsent’s grave site at Anglican Cemetery, St. John’s, Newfoundland via findagrave.com.
Douglas Pinsent died in May 1953 and Mr. F. M. O’Leary, the “President of the St. John’s Memorial Stadium Council” said “If I may digress for a moment – mention of the old St. John’s Stadium Company brings to our mind one of the members who played a very prominent part in the early efforts to provide a Stadium for St. John’s. I refer to the late Douglas Pinsent and the present Stadium Council would like to record its very deep regret on his passing and pay a tribute to a very fine sportsman and public spirited citizen” in a radio address (Daily News: Saturday 23rd May 1953).
“Doug” Pinsent is commemorated with a trophy for clean play. Daily News, January 18, 1954.
The following year, the St. John’s Lion Club instituted an annual award or trophy, to the known as the “Douglas Pinsent Memorial Trophy.” It was to be awarded at the end of each season “to the player considered the most gentlemanly while being most valuable to his team”. The winner will be selected by a committee consisting of the coaches of city teams who will submit names to a trio of selectors – a member of the Lion’s Club, a member of the hockey executive and a member of the referees board” (Daily News 18th January 1954). The “Doug Pinsent, Memorial Trophy” was still being awarded in 1963 (Daily News: 31st May 1963).
Mrs. Douglas Pinsent and Mrs. Art Hamlyn, “the wives of former hockey stars who have departed,” were invited to attend the Ceremony that accompanied the opening of the 1955 hockey season in St. John’s new arena and Madeleine was asked to make the first drop of the puck. The match was (appropriately enough) between the “Feildians” and “St. Bon’s” teams (Daily News: dated 18th January 1955). John M. Tobin, another hockey stalwart in St. John’s died in 1956 and the Daily News (10th October 1956) noted that he, “along with the late Doug Pinsent, helped in no uncertain way to keep hockey alive in St. John’s when our arena was burnt down”.
Madeline Pinsent is reappointed secretary-treasurer of the Community Planning Association of Canada. Daily News, June 15 1956.
Douglas and Madeline’s son, Kenneth Douglas Pinsent was born in April 1953, a matter of weeks before his father died. So, sadly, Kenneth, never got to know his father. Madeleine was left with a very young child to rear. She became “Secretary-Treasurer” of the “St. John’s Planning Association” and was called upon to present a report at its annual general meeting (Daily News: 31st May 1955). She was also “Secretary-Treasurer” of the “Community Planning Association of Canada” (Daily News: 15th June 1956) – which seems to have been a full-time job.
Secretary Madeline Pinsent’s byline appears in the newspaper. January 30, 1957.
The City was growing and Madeleine was responsible for notifying the public of changes in the regulations regarding traffic flow in St. John’s. The changes could be substantial and some of the notifications came with maps as well as explanations (Daily News: 24th August 1956). The changes may not always have been appreciated by motorist or pedestrian. However, they doubtless appreciated having the snow cleared (Daily News: 19th February 1959).
Madeline was an American by birth, however, her mother lived in Vernon in British Columbia and she moved there in 1959. Three years later, she moved down to Los Gatos, in California; where she worked for “IBM” for twenty-five years before retiring at the end of March 1987 (Correspondence with R. J. F. H. Pinsent).
Kenneth Douglas Pinsent dies in 1984. Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church Columbarium, Los Gatos, Santa Clara County, California, USA. Findagrave.com
Her son Kenneth Douglas Pinsent was educated at “Los Gatos High School”, in Santa Clara, California (U.S. School Books: MyHeritage.com). He trained as a lawyer and both he and his wife to be appear to have been working for the firm of “Boston, Petrini & Conron” in 1982 (Bakersfield, California, City Directory: 1982). Kenneth married Wife (GRO1381) in May 1973. However, I am not aware of them having had children.
Kenneth was a junior partner when killed in a motorcycle accident two years later. He was 31 years old. Kenneth was buried at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Los Gatos.
Madeline Pinsent dies in 1996. Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church Columbarium, Los Gatos, Santa Clara County, California, USA. Findagrave.com
According to Madeline, his widow (Julie) remarried in Missouri in 1987. However, she seems to have been back living in Bakersfield, California in 1991. Madeline died in Los Gatos in March 1996.
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Charles Burton Pynsent was the only son of Robert Burton Pynsent by his wife Mary Isobel (née Addie). He was born in London in 1907 and moved to Eastbourne, in Sussex, with his family in around 1910. After his parents divorced in 1916, he went to live with his mother in Datchet, in Buckinghamshire.
Charles was at school, in the care of the Rev. Trevor Hubert Edwards when the 1921 census was taken. He was a “boarder” at “St. Felix School”, in Southwold, Suffolk. He later attended “Courtenay Lodge School” in Sutton Courtenay in Berkshire and rowed in its coxed four at the local regatta in June 1924 (Reading Observer: Saturday 21st June 1924).
C. B. Pynsent is among the rowers on May 1, 1931.
From there, he went up to Cambridge. Charles Burton Pynsent attended Selywn College in Cambridge between 1929 and 1932 and graduated with a B.A (Cantab). While at Cambridge, he joined the College rowing club and, in his book “A Personal History of the Selwyn College Boat Club” Mr. A. P. McEldowney (www.sel.cam.ac.uk/history-selwyn-boat-club) describes his changing role. Charles was Honourary Secretary in 1929/30 and 2nd Captain in 1930/31. He rowed in the College VIII – as Stroke (immediately in front of the Cox) in 1929, as #2 (second from the back) in 1929/30 and as #6 in 1930/31. All in all, his career did not match that of Sir Matthew Pinsent in the 1990s and 2000s but it was, nevertheless, a commendable undertaking.
My father (Dr. Robert John Francis Homfray Pinsent) went up to Selywn College a few years later and I never thought to ask “why there?” My grandfather (Francis Wingfield Homfray Pinsent) was on friendly terms with Charles’s father, Robert Burton Pynsent – and it is quite possible that “Cousin Bob” recommended the college. I gather from a letter my father wrote to Robert Burton’s grandson – another Robert Burton Pynsent – (27th April 1964) that his grandfather had “helped him” while he was at University. Some of the help could have been financial.
Charles obtained a B.A. (Cantab) and set sail for Ceylon (Sri Lanka) on the P. & O. Steam Ship “Maloja” on 11th January 1933. From there, he must have taken a steamer to Karachi in present-day Pakistan, as he married Lorna Ruth Tasman Moss, at Lahore, in the Punjab (Bengal Presidency) in April 1933 (British India Office Ecclesiastical Returns: Findmypast.com). The marriage certificate says that he was then in “business”. What he was actually doing I do not know but the couple did not for long stay in India. They arrived back in London on “R.M.S. City of Marseilles”, on 3rd April 1934.
Charles and Lorna developed an interest in flying on their return, and we find that “Mr. C. B. Pynsent, of Lynwood House, Woodstock Road, Strood” was appointed secretary to the Rochester Flying Club when it was first formed in October 1936. He admitted that “he knew practically nothing about flying, but (said) he would work to the best of his ability to further the interests of the club and its members”. The club had the support of the Mayor and Council of Rochester and one of Britain’s of the major aircraft manufacturers – Short Bros, so there was considerable excitement in the air. … (Chatham, Rochester and Brompton Observer: 2nd October 1936).
Lorna Pynsent’s sky-high adventures appear in the Belfast Telegraph, November 3, 1936.
Around then, Lorna decided to take parachute lessons at Gravesend Airport. She was 24 years old at the time and had a two-year-old boy. The papers tell us that she was not the least bit scared when she made her first drop, so I assume she achieved her goal of becoming qualifying as a parachutist (Belfast Telegraph: Tuesday 3rd November 1936)! According to my father (Robert John Francis Homfray Pinsent), her unnamed son “is thought to have gone out to Canada”. However, I know nothing about him and he is not included in the database.
Charles and Lorna divorce in April 1941.
Charles was the Director of an Aero-hire Service and a “Special Constable in Croydon when the wartime Register was compiled in 1939. His wife was noticeable absent. She was a “Land Girl” living with a farmer near Maidstone, in Kent. Two years later, Lorna petitioned for a divorce from Charles on grounds of desertion – and it was granted in April 1941. My grandfather kept a copy of the document. Lorna married a Canadian “architect” and Captain in the Hamilton Light Infantry, John Turner Bell, in Aldershot, in Hampshire the following month. Their marriage documents tell us that Lorna came from a military family and her father was a structural Engineer who had retired from the Indian Service of Engineers. I assume she took her unnamed son out to Canada. Perhaps he changed his name to Bell.
C. B. Pynsent appears as a Flying Officer in the Administrative and Special Duties Branch, 1943.
Charles, meanwhile, married Bessie Florence Hunt, a clerk working for the Ministry of Labour, at Windsor Registry Office, in July 1942. According to her son Robert Burton Pynsent’s obituary (The London Times: 8th April 2023), she was the “graphic designer” who later created the original wrappers for the “Mars Bar”,“Poppets” and “Maltesers” chocolate confections. At the time of their wedding, Charles was described as being both a “Company Director” and a “Pilot Officer” in the Royal Air Force. Charles Burton had joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve as an “Acting Pilot Officer” (on probation) in August 1941 and been promoted to “Pilot Officer” in October that year. He advanced to “Flight Officer” (on probation) in October 1942 (British Army, Navy & Air Force Records: 1921 – 2000) and stayed on as a “Flight Officer” until he relinquished his commission “on account of medical unfitness for Air Force Service” in December 1945. He was allowed to retain his rank (London Gazette: 11th January 1946). Robert Burton’s obituary adds that he worked for the Royal Air Force Air Sea Rescue Service.
Charles and Bessie had two sons in the 1940s: the first was born at Milliken Park, in Renfrewshire, while Charles was serving in Scotland in 1943, and the second came while he was based in Caterham, in Surrey, in 1945. The family stayed on in Caterham until at least 1959 (British Telephone Books). However, they had moved to Speldhurst, near Tonbridge Wells, in Kent, by 1964. Charles Burton died in Croydon the following year.
Bessie Pynsent appears in the Kent & Sussex Courier, March 21, 1975.
Charles’s widow, Bessie stayed on in Speldhurst and she was a stalwart member of its Women’s Institute (Kent and Sussex Courier: 21st March 1975) until shortly before she died in 1996. Suffice it to say that her eldest son, Robert Burton Pynsent, became a well-known “Professor of Slavic Studies” and her second became an equally well-known “Director of Orthopedic Training” in Birmingham. Both co-authored, edited and wrote numerous articles in their respective fields. Sadly, Robert Burton died in December 2022. His life is described elsewhere.
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Charles Augustus Maxwell Pinsent was the eldest surviving son of a “barrister” in Newfoundland, Robert John Pinsent. He came from Robert John’s marriage to Anna Brown, née Cooke. Their family consisted of three girls and five boys but, sadly, only the eldest girl, Lucretia Maude and two of the boys, Charles Augustus and Arthur Newman outlived their father.
Charles’s mother was the daughter of a “merchant” with strong links to Portugal. In 1864, she had taken a trip to England to visit the English side of her husband’s family. She had taken two of her daughters (Lucretia (7) and Catherine (6)) and her four-month-old “baby,” William. However, her son, Hedley (2) had been left at home with his father. Anna kept a diary while in England. In it, she seems to show that she missed her husband and her life in St. John’s: “July 26th: Tomorrow will be dear R’s birthday and we must drink his health in a little of the old Port… “. Unfortunately their relationship did not last. Robert and Anna had two more sons after she returned (Charles and Arthur), but their relationship seems to have come to an end shortly after Arthur was born.
Robert John Pinsent filed for divorce in “Her Majesty’s Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Matters” in London in 1869, claiming that his wife had left him in St. John’s and moved to England – where she was nominally looking after their children who were at school in Bristol. While there, she had (or, more likely, she continued) an affair with Charles Mesham, a married Newfoundlander.
The 1871 Census tells us that Anna’s son Robert Hedley Vicars Pinsent (or “Hedley” as he was known) was at “Ebernezer House School” and her daughters, Lucretia Anna Maude and Catherine Louisa Pinsent, were living with and were being schooled by the Keddle sisters in Westbury on Trym. The Keddles were family relations. The case wound its way through the Court and adultery was eventually proved. In January 1870 the divorce was finalized (National Archives (J77/84 File 796) and Mr. Mesham paid £3,000 in damages for his involvement. However, he was out the picture by then – perhaps he had gone back to his wife and family – so Anna married John Lee Statham in April.
Anna and Robert John negotiated an out of court financial settlement and Robert took control of the children. They were still young and the settlement took some time to implement. Family papers, now in the Newfoundland Archives, show that in 1884 Robert John gifted his country house, “Woodlands” at Salmonier, and most of his property in St. John’s, including (in part) his house called “Hillsboro,” to his eldest son, Charles Augustus Maxwell. He did so in exchange for a release from an obligation to keep his life insured for $3,000.00.
“Hedley,” meanwhile, died and Robert John’s second son, Arthur Newman Pinsent sold his interest in the family’s estate to his older brother Charles and received $1,860.00 in cash. He was later to leave St. John’s and head west into Canada, where he ended up in Saskatchewan. His life is discussed elsewhere.
Robert John Pinsent married Emily Hetty Sabine Homfray in Froxfield in Wiltshire in April 1872. Why they married in Froxfield and not Emily’s home church in Bintry (a.k.a “Bintree”) in Norfolk (where her father was the Vicar) is unclear. Perhaps divorce came with a stigma back then and it was strategically better to marry elsewhere. The couple soon started a second family that was to be made up of four daughters and three sons. Sadly only two of each sex outlived their father. Their lives are also discussed elsewhere.
Bishop Feilds School, St. John’s.
Back to Charles, who would have been six years old when his father married for the second time. There is a short biography of Mr. Charles Augustus Maxwell Pinsent in a book entitled “Newfoundland Men: Biographical Sketches” edited by Henry Youmans Mott, in 1894. It includes the portrait photograph above. It tells us that Charles was educated at the Church of England Academy (later known as “Bishop Feilds School”) – the premier Anglican “public” (i.e. “private”) school in St. John’s – and the Methodist Academy in St. John’s, Newfoundland, and also at a Norfolk County School in England. Most of the schooling in Newfoundland in those days was based around religious denominations. The Norfolk school was, presumably, near his step-mother’s home at Bintry.
C.A.M. returns from Montreal as part of his work with Exploits Wood Company of London, England. Evening Telegram, October 14, 1893.
Charles was, presumably, taken on as a “clerk” by one of his father’s mercantile friends in St. John’s when he left school. We hear little about him for a few years – until he comes to the fore again in his early twenties.
The “Sketch” alluded to above shows that he worked for “C. H. Bennett and Co., of St. John’s,” for a few years before branching out and becoming the Newfoundland representative of “Exploits Wood Co. of London.” He was later to become an agent of “Underwriting and Agency Associates of London” and manager of “Sun Life Assurance Co. of Canada”. Charles was also the “Vice Consul for Portugal” for several years [almost certainly a result of his mother’s family’s mercantile interests – RHP].
Robert John and his second wife Emily Pinsent lived at “Hillsboro’” in St. John’s while he was growing up and they owned a strategically placed country cottage called “Woodlands” on the Salmonier River near Holyrood. Robert and his family loved to hunt and fish and the family spent as much of its time as possible at “Woodlands” (a.k.a “Salmonier”). In fact, Charles and his brothers (presumably Hedley and Frank) are reputed to have cut the first trail from the main road to “Pinsent’s Falls” – which was one of the best salmon fishing-spots on the Salmonier River.
Charles had a predilection for hunting: “Mr. Charles Pinsent has just returned from Salmonier where, in company with a guide, he spent three days in the woods – camping out in the tilts being attended with beautiful weather. They saw two stags, a doe and a fawn. They wounded the two stags both mortally but one escaped. The head of the animal secured is massive with antlers of good size for the season” (Evening Telegram: 24th March 1885). A “tilt” is an angled roof built on site for protection from the weather. Charles was out hunting again the following Christmas: “We are informed that Mr. C. Pinsent, junr., who spent Christmas Day at Woodlands, Salmonier, visited the deer marshes next day and, with his accustomed luck returned with two deer. This young sportsman has brought to town four deer within the year, having been fortunate on every occasion he has visited the Salmonier parks” (Evening Telegram: 29th December 1885).
A letter to the editor referencing C.A.M. Evening Telegram, March 11, 1886.
Charles was hardly an environmentalist, but he circulated a petition calling for better controls on hunting on the Avalon Peninsula and it received some interest in the press: Mr. Langrishe Mare wrote: “I signed the petition drawn up by that enthusiastic young sportsman Mr. Charles Pinsent, and he deserves great credit for the energetic action he has taken in the matter” (Evening Telegram: 11th March 1886). Many people must have agreed with him but not everybody was convinced: “It is the voice of every sportsman that signed Mr. Pinsent’s petition, “give us the same law as last year, all shooting to begin 1st September” (Evening Telegram: 16th April 1886).
Report on the local hunting scene. Evening Telegram, September 16, 1887.
The following year, the country correspondent at the Evening Telegram breathlessly reported that “Mr. Charles Pinsent was amongst those who enjoyed a half holiday in this way, and he got home by eleven in the forenoon with four brace of snipe and one twillock or wader, the nine birds making a quite a handsome bunch of game” (Evening Telegram: 16th September 1887). Yes, in Newfoundland “twillock” does refer to a wading bird. It is not a derogatory term as it once was in English English! Who can complain if “Mr. C. A. M. Pinsent opened the shooting season with a good bag of birds, He shot fifteen snipe and a bittern before breakfast” (Evening Telegram: 16th September 1889).
To give credit where it was due, “Mr. C. A. M. Pinsent tells us that his nine-year-old sister, Miss Trixie Pinsent, paying her first visit to the Falls of Salmonier River, on Wednesday last, and making the first cast there for the season, booked, and succeeded in landing, two grilse at the same time” (Evening Telegram: 25th June 1892). This also impressed her mother, Lady Pinsent (as she then was) and she published an article in an unspecified Quebec newspaper in May 1893. I have a clipping she made of the item. Evidently Trixie was fishing for trout and caught the first on a “silver doctor” and the other on a “small trout fly”. A grilse (while we are at it) is an Atlantic salmon that has only had one year at sea.
When he was not out in the Newfoundland bush, Charles was, presumably working in St. John’s; however his work-life is not so well documented. He had a social life as well, of course. In January 1886, and again in February 1887, he served on the Committee that put on a “Charity Ball” on behalf or the Ladies of the St. Vincent de Paul Society (Evening Telegram: 23rd January 1886; 5th February 1887). Nevertheless, Charles did not marry until 1897.
Charles’s father, Robert John Pinsent, was appointed to the Supreme Court of Newfoundland in April 1880 and he spent several years dispensing justice “on circuit” around the Island’s out-ports. It gave him a unique perspective on the issues facing the Colony and he was well-placed to raise these issues in St. John’s. He also spent a considerable amount of time in England, where he also tried to and have them understood and addressed by the Mother Parliament. Queen Victoria honoured him with a Knighthood in 1890. For practical reasons, it probably made little sense to keep both his city residence and his country “cottage” open all the time – when one or other would do so they were not infrequently advertised for let. Lady Pinsent was quite happy to live at “Woodlands.”
Photograph of Duckworth and Water Streets in St. John’s, circa 1880s.
In April 1888, Charles advertised “Hillsboro’; having Conservatory and flowers, hot and cold water, and garden and stabling, with man-servant’s house, if required.” as available to let for the summer months (Evening Telegram: 30th April 1888). He did so again the following year: “TO BE LET, For the summer months of this year, or for a term, fully furnished, hot and cold water, gas and all other conveniences, HILLSBORO, King’s Bridge Road, commanding views of Signal Hill and Quidi Vidi Lake, with fine garden, stables, coach and manservants house attached, conservatory, &c” (Evening Telegram: 29th April 1889). It was the same story in 1890 (Evening Telegram: 12th May 1890) and 1892 (Evening Telegram: 15th June 1892). It was clearly more than a “cottage.” The latter year Charles also advertised a number of building lots in St. John’s for lease for 99 years. Whether it was family property – or he was just acting as agent for the owner, I do not know (Evening Telegram: 30th September 1892). It is clear that by the mid-1880s Charles was essentially in charge of much of the family business. A good deal of the property belonged to him anyway.
Life in the Pinsent family changed radically in 1893. Sir Robert and Lady Pinsent took a leave of absence and went to England where their younger children were still at school. While there, they took a trip out to Italy to see Sir Robert’s eldest daughter by his first wife, Lucretia Maude Pinsent – who was (as discussed elsewhere) – the Lady Abbess of a Benedictine convent in Rome. Sir Robert and Lady Pinsent returned to London in April and Lady Pinsent traveled back to her family in Bintry, in Norfolk.
Excerpt from a letter written by Sir Robert to his son Francis, April 12, 1893.
Sir Robert stayed on in London to conduct business. For one thing, he wanted to ship some trees out to Newfoundland to plant at “Woodlands.” In a letter he wrote to his son Francis he asked him to handle the shipment when it arrived. Evidently, he had arranged for Charles to do this – but he had turned up unexpectedly in London! “A letter received from Rob. Informed us that Charlie has telegraphed to his firm announcing his leaving for England, still we could hardly credit it. However, I went up to London from here yesterday morning, and proposed inquiring at Morgan & Jellinghams about C. and would you believe it the first person I met to speak to in London was the identical C. himself, who was amusing himself in surveying the city on foot and in omnibuses”. Charles had left St. John’s, bound for Halifax and then London on 28th March (Evening Telegram: 28th March 1893).
Perhaps it was fortuitous that he was there as Sir Robert took sick with pneumonia shortly after and he went up to Bintry. His daughter Mabel (the Lady Abbesses’ half-sister) wrote to Lucretia in Rome on 20th April saying: “You will be most sorry to hear dear father is very poorly today. Mr. Dashwood has been to see him. He says he has had a relapse but not in any danger. Dear mother is pretty well. We are having most lovely weather now, so I hope father will soon be stronger”. Lady Pinsent added a postscript: “Your dear father is a little better today but he is very weak. We are dong our best for him and the doctor says there is no danger. Poor darling, he has got so thin”. Sadly, the doctor was wrong. Sir Robert died on 27th April 1893. He was buried at Bintry.
The loss of a Judge of the Supreme Court caused quite a stir in Newfoundland and Charles, who was Sir Robert’s eldest son and the executor of his will returned to Newfoundland on the Allan Line’s S.S. “Corean,” which left Liverpool on 9th May 1893 (Passenger Transcripts: Findmypast). Lady Pinsent and her daughter Mabel and her younger children (Guy and Trixie) stayed on in England. There was plenty to be done in Newfoundland, particularly given the existence of his two families.
The legal processes got underway in June with the usual call for creditors to make themselves known to his son, the executor (Charles A. M. Pinsent, of St. John’s, Commission Merchant), “PURSUANT TO THE PROVISIONS OF the Act passed in the forty-first year of the of her present Majesty, entitled “The Trustees’ Act, 1878,” (Evening Telegram 7th June 1893). It was a busy time. In the same issue, Charles advertised “Salmonier: For Sale, or to Let for the season, or for a longer period, in good order and entirely furnished, that well-known property (through which the Salmonier River passes), “Woodlands,” Salmonier, belonging to the estate of the late Sir Robert Pinsent and also, if required, horse, carriage, cow and other requisites which are on the premises.” The presence of a cow is interesting! Whether the property was actually meant for “sale”, I doubt. Charles loved the place and Lady Pinsent and his brothers may well have had a retained interest in it.
Charles seems to have conducted other business that same day: He was the sole executor of Catherine Wrey of Twillingate and he had her will to probate as well as his father’s – and he had to arrange for her property to be let out (Evening Telegram: 7th June 1893). Perhaps she had died while he was abroad.
Interestingly, Charles may have inherited a residual interest in his grandfather Robert John Pinsent’s old shipping business as his name is (or was) attached to one of the Merchant House flags on display in the Cabot Tower on Signal Hill in the 1980s. There had been a disastrous fire in July 1892 that had destroyed most of down-town St. John’s and Charles was well placed to benefit from the rebuild – which inevitable required the importation of goods from England, the United States and Canada.
St. John’s after the fire, 1892
Charles had not only taken leave from the company he worked for prior to going to England in 1893, but he seems to have quit the firm – intending to work for himself. On the same day in June proudly announced: “Notice by the undersigned, is hereby given that he has been appointed Agent for the Exploits Wood Co., Ltd. of London, England in place of Messrs. Goodday, Benson and Co., of Quebec, who have resigned: Charles A. M. Pinsent” (Evening Telegram: 7th June 1893). The lumber needed to rebuild the town started to arrive from Montreal at the end of May (Evening Telegram: 29th May 1893) and it kept on coming in the ensuing months. For instance: “Lumber from Quebec: The Marie Vigilante, 14 days from Quebec, lumber laden, is consigned to Mr. C. A. M. Pinsent” (Evening Telegram: 29th May 1893) and “LUMBER FOR Sale: A cargo, whole or part of 2 and 3 inch pine lumber now landed at A. M. McKay’s Wharf, per schr. “Hyacinth” for particulars apply to C. A. M. Pinsent”(Evening Telegram: 1st September 1893).
Business was looking up and Charles took a trip to Montreal to report in and negotiate contracts that autumn. He left St. John’s for Halifax on 24th August on the S.S. “Carthaginian” (Evening Telegram: 24th August 1893) and, from there he headed up to Montreal. Clearly he was there to drum up business and he was not above using his father’s name to his advantage. He arranged an interview with the Montreal Gazette that was was reprinted in the St. John’s Evening Herald on 22nd September 1894. In it, he claimed that he was a proud Newfoundlander and anti-Confederation-ist. Among much else he said: “I am not an active politician … (and) … although my father took quite a prominent part in the political affairs of Newfoundland for many years. However, I have a deep interest in the political and commercial welfare of the colony and with such as the Hon. Mr. Goodridge, Hon. Mr. Monroe, Hon. A. R. Morine and Hon. W. B. Grieve steering the ship of state Newfoundland must be prosperous and the hour of confederation put back for several years”. Evidently, he felt that, given its fishing industry, its mines and forests Newfoundland would be well able to look after itself – at least in the short term. He was in Montreal, he said, “purchasing supplied for the men in the camps of the Exploits Wood Co., of London, England, and have already purchased here 7,000 barrels of pork, flour, and peas. Botwoodville, Nfld, had the largest lumbering mill in the colony, and exports three inch pine deal to Liverpool, London, Glasgow and Hull. It is managed by Morgan Gillibrand & Co. of London, Eng., and is a most valuable property. And all races and creeds live together in harmony.”
Charles went on to Ottawa and returned to Newfoundland on the S.S. “Tiber” in October with “supplies, equal in bulk to some nine thousand barrels, fifteen heavy horses and fifty men for the Exploits Wood Company of London, England” (Evening Telegram: 14th October 1893). The Company was clearly actively exploring and logging in the Colony. This may be around the time that Charles’s half-brother, Robert John Ferrier Homfray Pinsent made his ill-advised venture into the logging business in Newfoundland (“In the Pinewoods of Newfoundland:” (Undated article in “The Field Magazine:” see: elsewhere).
Newspaper clipping advertising C.A.M.’s hiring with Sun Life Assurance Company via the Evening Herald, April 7, 1894.
Business was looking good for Charles and he was appointed “Vice Consul for Portugal” (Evening Telegram: 28th February 1894) and manager of the “Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada” in the Colony in April (Evening Telegram: 7th April 1894). He proudly announced that: “I am prepared to offer to the public Life Insurance upon the most liberal basis and approved forms” and the paper remarked: “We congratulate Mr. Pinsent upon the appointment and feel sure the company will profit by such a representative.” Charles’s maternal grandfather John Richard McGuire Cooke was a merchant with Portuguese trading interests. He also seems to have brokered land sale transactions as well: “For Sale or to Let: That valuable piece of Fee Simple property situate almost immediately opposite the C. E. Orphanage, Military road, for particulars apply to C. A. M. Pinsent of Frank D. Lilly, Solicitor “ (Evening Telegram: 14th April 1894).
This is not to say that Charles did not still enjoy country pursuits, as the Evening Telegram tells us (14th February 1894) “Mr. Charles A. M. Pinsent left by this morning’s train for Woodlands, Salmonier, where he intends spending a couple of days, being the last of the season, on the deer grounds, within the peninsula of Avalon.” He even purchased a race-horse “… a good blood 2.40 pacer by the S.S. “Tiber.” It is a dandy; see it” (Evening Telegram: 26th February 1894).
Charles may have regretted having given such a public interview in Montreal. The fishery failed that year and in December two of Newfoundland’s three banks crashed – which totally destroyed the colonial economy. The fishery had, for generations, been run on the “truck” system whereby out-port merchants provided the materiel needed by the fishermen at the start of the season and received payment when the season ended. They then supplied materiel for the seal “fishery” and received payment when it was over. It was a precarious system that was untenable when the fishery failed. It did not help that many of the St. John’s merchants who ran the banks abused their position and that the Colony was on the hook for the construction of the Newfoundland Railway. There was a run on the banks and the “Commercial Bank” collapsed on 8th December 1894. This caused a run on the other banks and the “Union Bank” went down a short time later.
Embarrassingly, Charles’s uncle Charles Speare Pinsent was the manager of the “Union Bank” (see elsewhere) and his name was on the currency – which was now pretty well (o.k. not quite) worthless! The Colonial Government took a look at the finances and behaviour of the Bank’s “Board of Directors” and charged them with misrepresenting its finances. Charles Speare was also charged; however, he turned states-evidence and testified for the prosecution when the trial began in the fall of 1895. His evidence was not particularly damning and no major convictions were made. It took considerable assistance from Canadian Banks to rebuild the Newfoundland Economy.
In the meantime, there was the fall-out to deal with. Many Companies either left the Colony or collapsed completely. “NOTICE: ALL persons having accounts against the Exploits Wood Co. Ltd. of London, will please hand the same in at the office of the undersigned at once, where due payment will be made. CHARLES A. M. PINSENT, Agent” (Evening Telegram: 2nd February 1895).
Charles was, of course, still the Newfoundland agent for the “Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada”, which, reacted by providing a grace period for receipt of this payments (Evening Herald: Saturday 19th January 1895). It survived the crash, and now (and frequently thereafter) announced that it “Having been favoured with a large share of Life Assurance by the public last year, I would now remind them that the same most LIBERAL Policies are issued by the above Company. Information in connection with kinds and conditions of Policies can be had at the office of CHARLES A. M. PINSENT” (Evening Telegram: 24th May 1895).
Other Insurance companies also recognized an opportunity and one, the “Northern Fire Insurance Company, of London, England” hired Charles and offered the ”Lowest current rates of Premiums. Risks taken upon all sorts of Insurable Property, and valid losses promptly settled with liberality without reference to Home Office: Charles A. M. Pinsent, Agent for Newfoundland” (Evening Telegram: 18th May 1895). Presumably there was no conflict of interest between the two.
Charles still had “Woodlands”, although even it was advertised for “Sale or Let” for the summer months “furnished and with all conveniences and in perfect order, “Woodlands” Salmonier, the residence of the late Hon. Mr. Justice Sir Robert J. Pinsent. Fine salmon and trout fishing close at hand; also deer, partridge, snip and rabbit shooting” (Evening Telegram: 18th May 1895). He lived in St. John’s but I suspect he would have been loathe to see “Woodlands” go as he was now able to travel by rail from St. John’s to Holyrood – the nearest railway station – and back to town fairly easily. The train was still a bit of a novelty and the papers published the names of select people as they came and went: “Returned by Train: —Then returned by evening train: Archdeacon Botwood, from Topsail; Messrs. C A. M. Pinsent and A. O. Hayward, from Salmonier. The latter two had been trouting and procured fair catches” (Evening Telegram: 3rd April 1895).
Charles lived on Military Road in St. John’s and owned at least one piece of potential building land which he put up “For sale or to let: All that piece or parcel of freehold and unencumbered property, situate on the south side of Military Road and nearly opposite the Church of England Orphanage, and at present vacant, belonging the undersigned. For particulars, apply at the office of Chas. A. M. Pinsent” (Evening Telegram: 18th May 1895). He seems to have held and attempted to sell other property as well; however, he may have been acting as an “agent” for some other party.
Times were hard. He sold his horse – “For Sale: On Easy Terms: that brown blood mare “Ruby Stanton,” registered No. 9 in the La Huron Stock Book, may be examined, and tried in carriage, cart or saddle, also one first class prize Winsor dog cart, new; harness and saddle complete: Charles A M. Pinsent:” Evening Telegram: 6th July 1895) and he took to selling small quantities of imported consumable products – such as butter “… For Sale: 50 Tubs choice Canadian fine creamery butter (best quality)” and, more significantly, cigars: “Cigars: 13,000 Choice cigars of different brands and of really good quality. Will be sold cheap to close shipment: Call and see them: Charles A. M. Pinsent” (Evening Telegram 18th May 1895).
In September 1895, Charles put his business in St. John’s to one side for a while and returned to England to see his stepmother and her family, and doubtless cast around for business ventures (Evening Telegram: 21st September 1895). How he and Lady Pinsent got on I do not know, but there must have been some tension in the family as Charles, who was from Sir Robert’s first family received most of his estate and Lady Pinsent received very little. She had had to take on job as “matron” at a “Public” (i.e. “Private”) school and she was disappointed that she would not be able to give her children the education she felt they deserved. As discussed elsewhere, Trixie would not be able to go to medical school. It cannot have been made any easier knowing that Charles’s uncle (Charles Speare Pinsent) – her brother-in-law -was then still embroiled in the “Bank Scandal.”
Nearly every one in the family wrote articles for publication. Sir Robert, for instance, wrote (among other things) about the “French Shore Question” in the “Nineteenth Century Magazine” and Lady Pinsent wrote a couple of articles on Fishing in Newfoundland in “The Field Magazine” (see elsewhere). Her son Robert John Ferrier Homfray Pinsent, meanwhile published an article entitled “In the Pinewoods of Newfoundland” in the same magazine. It was about a failed forestry venture. Her son Francis Wingfield Homfray Pinsent wrote a (probably unpublished) discussion of a hunting expedition “How I shot & lost my first Stag.” I now have it.
Charles was not to be outdone: He wrote a long letter to the Editor of the Evening Telegram detailing his experiences in England and Scotland and included a story about how the S.S. “Corean” had narrowly escaped a collision travelling up river to Glasgow in dense fog. He was impressed by the architecture he saw in Glasgow but admitted that Edinburgh had an edge in its Universities, art and literature (Evening Telegram: 17th October 1895). Specifically what he was doing in Scotland, I am not sure.
The journey back to North America was not particularly eventful. However, his ship, the S.S. “Portia”, got caught in a storm on leaving Halifax on its trip back to St. John’s. Charles dropped by the office of the Evening Telegram shortly after he disembarked, and gave them a gripping account of the trip (probably the tail-end of a major hurricane that had come up the U.S. Coast.) “I relate, as an eye-witness, being, fortunately, an extremely good sailor, my experience from Halifax to St. John’s, in plain, unvarnished facts; although begun in the saloon, alone, in the midst of a hurricane indeed; and perhaps such, as few, if any one on board, of the 108 steerage and 12 saloon passengers, or crew, have Ever Hitherto Experienced”. It must have been quite the trip. “At 2 a.m., Thursday, it became worse, and the deck load forward had become loose, consisting of many iron-bound casks of petroleum, and the captain, for protection of life, the ship, and property, gave distinct orders, and rightly so, as it turned out afterwards, “to clear the deck forward;” and, in consequence, to have a clean deck, oil and other things were tossed into the seas”. Later he adds, “One woman, in the midst of the storm, in her agony, asked a reverend gentleman To Write Her Will and place it in a corked bottle and throw it overboard, with particulars, so that it might be known we were lost, and when and where. This portion of the narrative I am writing, as I began, alone in the saloon” (Evening Telegram: 14th December 1895).
Charles had passed through Montreal on his way back to St. John’s and he had had a follow-up interview at the Montreal Gazette. His analysis was reprinted in the Evening Telegram on 16th December 1895. In it, he conceded that the financial crash had caused considerable damage but he now considered the prospects for the colony in better shape than ever! “I am not a politician, but there is no knowing when I may enter into the political arena. As regards Confederation, my natural feelings are opposed to it for several reasons. In the first place we enjoy to-day home rule in its entirety, and the feeling of the masses in the old colony is that we should retain it. It is only natural that we should and keep our present position of Practical Independence. I feel confident that, if our resources were developed, no doubt would exist, with good government, as to the colony retaining its independence.” As to the banking scandal, all he could say given that his uncle was the manager of the Union Bank was “In regard to the bank scandals, I would much prefer not to express an opinion, being personally acquainted with all connected in those matters, but I will say that any impartial mind, having a full conception of the past business workings of the colony, as a whole, would not attach any direct criminal blame to the directors of the institutions implicated.” Well they did ask.
Back in St. John’s Albert Ellis sued the “Sun Life Insurance Company” claiming that he had given Charles a cheque for $50 on 18th December 1894 in good faith and Charles had accepted it at full value despite the fact that the bank was then failing. The Company had refused to honour his policy and he now (not unreasonably) wanted his money back – in real dollars – as given – not in devalued ones! The judge evidently thought he had a point (Evening Telegram: 10th January 1896). Charles did what he could to make ends meet in the months that followed – moving back and forth from “Hillsboro” to “Woodlands” like a pendulum. In fact, the Evening Telegram’s travel correspondent was quick to point out that “We hardly know whether our good friend Mr. C. A. M. Pinsent lives in town or out of town these stirring times; but this much we do know, namely: that he arrived in town again this afternoon” (Evening Telegram: 4th April 1896). A month or so later, he reported that: “Mr. C. A. M. Pinsent has left to enjoy the ozone from the waters of Conception Bay, as a respite from business worry” (Evening Telegram: 15th June 1896). Clearly, things were not going well. However, he may have had more than business on his mind.
Charles had, in amongst all his travel and hunting and fishing, found time to marry. He married Fanny Sophia Colley, the daughter of Canon Francis Worthington Colley, a well-known Anglican Minister in the out-port community of Topsail. They were married in Topsail in January 1897 (Evening Telegram: 7th January 1897). Charles was supported by his brother Francis W. Pinsent who was also in charge of the (photographic) pictures. Sadly, I have none of them. News of the wedding circulated throughout the empire (Colonies and India: Saturday 6th February 1897).
The gravestone of Frances V. R. H. Pinsent, who died in 1898.
Charles and Fanny had a daughter, Frances Vicars Raleigh Hoyles Pinsent that November but she was to be short lived. She died in Topsail in September 1898 when only 10 months old.
Charles sold odds and ends, turkeys and dentist’s chairs at one point and also acted as an estate agent – being, for instance, he was involved in the sale of the late Hon. C. F. Bennett’s (the brewer’s) not inconsiderable estate in St. John’s and Goulds (Evening Telegram: 27th April 1897). He moved his office to the Commercial Chambers on Water Street (Evening Herald: 5th July 1897) and proceeded to sell bulk items, such as flour, butter tea and cigars by auction (Evening Herald: 24th January 1898).
C.A.M. announces his appointment as Sole Agent for Newfoundland for Messers. H. Jacobs & Co. of Montreal, Canada. The Evening Herald, September 1, 1897.
He proudly announced that he had been appointed “sole agent in Newfoundland” for “Messrs. H. Jacob’s & Co. of Montreal” the manufacturers of the “famous “Stonewall Jackson” and “Lord Wolseley” Cigars, which they have made a speciality of for over a quarter of a century. These are the standard ten-cent cigars of the Dominion, having by far the largest sale of any brands in Canada” (Evening Herald: Wednesday 1st September 1897) and this appears to have been his principal sales line in the years that followed.
Lady Pinsent’s eldest son, Robert John Ferrier Homfray Pinsent gave up his job in Montreal and returned to Newfoundland to recuperate from a bout of tuberculosis in August 1897. He stayed at “Woodlands” and wrote to his mother in England. He asked lovingly after her and the rest of the family. He was very complimentary about his brother Frank (who was soon to leave for England) but much less so about his half-brother, Charles Augustus Maxwell who dropped by for a visit. Robert thought that he resented his being there. Robert goes on to says that Fanny was “very nice but very quiet and reserved, but at present she is not very well which no doubt accounts for it.” She would have been pregnant at the time. Robert goes on to say that the house (“Woodlands”)“is but a rag of what it was” as it had been stripped of most of its contents, and he feared that it might be difficult to sell. They were not at all well off; however, his health had been improving and his wife, Annie (née March), had applied for a school (teaching) position in St. John’s.
The assault case is reported in the newspaper. Evening Telegram, November 19, 1898.
The loss of his child may have affected Charles deeply, coming as it did after four financially very difficult years. At any rate, his world unraveled further in 1898. In November he was in the Central District Court on a charge of assault on E. St. J. Howley. The evidence of the plaintiff was to the affect that “he visited Pinsent’s house on Wednesday night last and trouble arose in the first place over a bottle of whiskey, of which defendant had asked him to partake. The plaintiff aggravated matters when he made some personal observations. The defendant then struck the plaintiff and, following him through the door, struck and knocked him down, and left him insensible” (Evening Telegram: 17th November 1898). Or, as the Evening Herald would have it (19th November 1898): ”The plaintiff was the first to be put on the witness stand and detailed the facts of the altercation up to the point when he was hit by Pinsent and felled and afterwards kicked in the stomach, when he became unconscious. Since the assault some letters have been addressed to the plaintiff and his wife. They were taken in testimony, but most of them were of an extremely ludicrous and nonsensical nature, bringing the remark from His Honor that he was holding a court of lunacy”
This was not a good start; however, the press sensationalized the proceedings to such an extent that even Mr. St. J. Howley’s solicitor, felt that he had to intervene and set the record straight. Mr. Pinsent had NOT “kicked the plaintiff in the stomach as he lay unconscious” (Evening Telegram: 21st November 1898).
Newspaper announcement of the sale. The Evening Telegram, September 14, 1899.
How the verdict came down, I am not sure; however Charles sold his household furnishings on Military Road by auction the following on September (Evening Herald: 4th, 14th and 21th September 1899). The house on Military Road “then in the occupancy of Geo. E. Bearns” was put to auction later that month (12th September 1899).
Handwritten letter from Lady Pinsent to Maude Pinsent, December 16, 1900.
By November 1899, there was no disguising Charles’s drinking problem. In a letter to her stepdaughter Lucrectia Maude Pinsent in Rome, Lady Pinsent says: “I am most glad to have Frank here as I was always in terror for him on account of Charlie, he is little better then a madman now, is quite so when he is drunk & people are terrified if he goes near them. He is very angry with me because I refuse to give him my signature to sell Salmonier, for his own benefit & I feared he would vent his anger on Frank. I am acting on Mr. M. William advice. He is a solicitor, Charlie’s wife (Miss Colley) is in England but she is so afraid of his finding her she will not give either Frank or myself her address, we write through her sister.” Whether it was his failure in business or the loss of the child we will never know but it was not looking good.
Charles lost his position as Portuguese Vice-consul in March 1900 (Evening Telegram: 24th March 1900) and he drops out of sight around then – his career essentially over. The Misses Short may have sued him in April 1901. However, the plaintiff in that case was “Charles Pinsent” so he may have been entirely innocent: there were other “Charles Pinsent’s” around (Evening Telegram: 11th April 1901. He was (somewhat surprisingly) invited to dinner at Government House along with the members of the Legislative Council in April 1905 (Evening Telegram: 5th April 1905).
C.A.M.’s obituary. The Evening Herald, May 26, 1910.
Nevertheless, he ended up in the Lunatic Asylum (presumably suffering from some form of dementia) and died there on 25th May 1910 (Evening Telegram: 26th May 1910). He was forty-four years old. His uncle, Charles Speare Pinsent took charge of the funeral arrangements.
Fanny (née Colley) lived in fear of her husband and fled to England sometime after the death of her daughter. Presumably she was living there when her father Rev. Edward Colley died in 1905. He left her a modest bequest in his will, which must have helped. Fanny had settled in Ruthin in North Wales and she, presumably, made contact with her step-mother-in-law after her husband Charles died in 1910.
Fanny raise funds for the Ruthin “Red Cross Hospital” during the First World War (Denbighshire Free Press: 18th November 1916) and was, among other things, the Secretary of a committee formed to put on a whist drive and dance in aid of funds for “providing Comforts for Soldiers” in December 1916 (Denbighshire Free Press: 30th December 1916). The committee’s work continued throughout the war and into the peace that followed. However, the Ruthin “Comforts for Soldiers” working party announced in April 1919 that it would, in future, direct its attention to other local charities (Denbighshire Free Press: 5th April 1919). It was about this time that she placed an advertisment in the Morning Post (15th May 1919) seeking a live-in help for two ladies who lived with three maids at “Woodlands” in Ruthin.
Fanny lived on Castle Street in St. Meugan’s Llanrhydd, Ruthin at least from the 1940s (British Telephone Books: 1880-1984) and she died there in 1954. Later that year, Kathleen Winifred Davis probated her estate, valued at £1,348. I do not know who Kathleen was; however, it is worth noting that Fanny and Mrs. Gertrude Martha Denim Davis had been the joint executrixes of the will of the Rev. Canon Edwin Davis twelve years previously (Halifax Evening Courier: Friday 24th July 1942).
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