a history
Birth: 1989
Marriage: N/A
Spouse: N/A
Death: 1990
Family Branch: Tiverton
PinsentID: GRO1021
Grandfather: Neville Pinsent: 1932 – 2009
Gramdmother: Grandmother (GRO1476)
Father: Father (GRO0436)
Mother: Mother (GRO1477)
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James Pinsent: 1769 – 1833 GRO0981 (Tiverton, Devon)
Hannah Brimson: 1766 – xxxx
Married: 1791: Tiverton, Devon
Children by Hannah Brimson:
William Pinsent: 1792 – 1844
Thomas Pinsent: 1795 – 1860 (Married Hannah Johnson, 1820, Tiverton, Devon)
Anne Pinsent: 1799 – 1801
Richard Pinsent: 1799 – xxxx
Fanny Pinsent: 1804 – xxxx (Married Thomas Reid, 1822, Westminster, London)
Jane Pinsent: 1804 – xxxx (Married William Seward, 1828, Tiverton, Devon)
Family Branch: Tiverton
PinsentID: GRO0981
James was the eldest son of Thomas Pinsent by his wife, Anne Wright. He was born in Tiverton in 1769; he married Hannah Brimson in Tiverton in 1791 and he died there in 1833. James’s father and younger brother, Benjamin Pinsent, were both carpenters and he was likely brought up in the same trade. Unfortunately, I have no direct evidence of that.
James and Hannah had six children, three sons and three daughters between 1792 and 1804. Their eldest son William probably went up to London (where his cousin Benjamin was living in Bloomsbury) but what he did there, or if he married and had children, I am not sure. He was probably the “porter” who died of consumption in the St. Giles in the Field Workhouse, aged 52 years, on 29th November 1844.
William’s younger brother, Thomas Pinsent was (presumably) apprenticed to a “cordwainer” or “shoemaker”. He married Hannah Johnson in Tiverton in 1820 and they moved to her hometown of Loughborough in the 1830s. Thus it was this Thomas that founded the Leicestershire line within the TIVERTON branch of the family.
James and Hannah’s third, and youngest son, Richard Pinsent, is poorly documented. However, he may have been the Tiverton “labourer” who “married” Harriet Dawe (I can find no record for this) and had a daughter – name unknown – in Tiverton in April 1848. There is a Richard Pinson referred to in an action for trespass adjudicated at the Lammas Assize in 1845. Evidently, Harriet lived with her sister Anne (Dawe) in their late father’s leasehold cottage before she married Richard. It doubled as a “beer shop” and for various reasons its rent had become considerably overdue. The owner wanted Anne out and he tried harassing her. She took him to court and the case, in part, came down to her sister, Harriet, having seen the owner remove a rhubarb plant from the garden! For the Learned Judge, that was enough. He gave for Anne – the plaintiff (Western Times: Saturday 26th July 1845). Just to complicate matters: There was a family of “Pinsons” living in the Tiverton area at around this time and it is not clear how closely they were related. It is possible that the surnames were occasionally confused. Although Richard Pinsent certainly existed, it may have been a Pinson that married Harriet.
James’s daughter Anne died young. However, her sisters Fanny and Jane grew up and married. Fanny seems to have gone up to London. However, Jane stayed home and married in Tiverton.
Father: Thomas Pinsent: 1738 – 1825
Mother: Anne Wright: 1740 – 1815
James Pinsent: 1769 – 1833 ✔️
Benjamin Pinsent: 1776 – 1819
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James Pinsent: 1831 – 1902 GRO0453
Emma Jackson: 1831 – 1903
Married: 1856: Nottingham, Nottinghamshire
Children by Emma Jackson:
Hannah Martha Pinsent: 1857 – xxxx (Married William Sherwin Ward, 1876, Leicester, Leicestershire)
Georgiana Pinsent: 1859 – 1925 (Married Charles Henry Spencer Jones, 1879, Leicester, Leicestershire)
James Pinsent: 1862 – 1936 (Married (1) Emma Elizabeth Poxon: Leicester, Leicestershire 1884; (2) Emma Hubbard, Sneinton, Nottinghamshire)
Adrian Pinsent: 1864 – 1945 (Married Hannah West, 1887, Barrow upon Soar, Leicestershire)
Fanny Pinsent: 1866 – 1940 (Married Benjamin Scott, 1885, Leicester, Leicestershire)
Charlotte Ann Pinsent: 1868 – xxxx (Married James Smith, 1907, Leicester, Leicestershire)
Emily Pinsent: 1870 – xxxx (Alfred William Goodman, 1893, Leicester, Leicestershire)
Arthur Edwin Pinsent: 1872 – 1938 (Married Lizzie Memory, 1901, Leicester, Leicestershire)
Family Branch: Tiverton
PinsentID: GRO0453
James was the third son of Thomas Pinsent by his wife Hannah (née Johnson). He was born in Tiverton, in Devon, in 1831 but grew up in Leicestershire after his father, who was a “cordwainer” (shoemaker), moved there in around 1834. Leicestershire was at the heart of England’s growing leather processing and shoe manufacturing business. Thomas and Hannah had eleven children but several died young. At the time of the 1841 Census, the Pinsent family was living on Holland Street, in Loughborough.
There is very little known about Thomas’s children’s early life; however, we do know that James and two of his friends (John Dexter and George Parnell) came to the attention of the magistrates while still teenagers. They were convicted of breaking up a gentleman’s fence in September 1844. Whether they did so out of malice or for the sake of fire-wood isn’t stated. George and James were fined 2s 6d apiece at the Local “Petty Session.” John Dexter had to pay 5s – perhaps he was the eldest of the boys, or may be he was deemed to be the ringleader (Leicester Chronicle: Saturday 5th October 1844).
James was, inevitably, drawn into the shoe-making business and he too was a “cordwainer” when the census was next taken, in 1851. His elder siblings had moved out of the family home by then, and James was living on Barrow Street, in Loughborough, with his parents and five younger brothers and sisters.
James married Emma Jackson in Nottingham in 1856 but they lived in Loughborough, and they had their first four children (two girls: Hannah Martha Pinsent and Georgiana Pinsent, and two boys: James Pinsent and Adrian Pinsent – A.K.A. George Adrian Pinsent) while they were there. The family moved to Leicester in 1865, and they added another more four children (three girls: Fanny Pinsent, Charlotte Ann Pinsent and Emily Pinsent, and one boy: Arthur Edwin Pinsent) to their growing family. They were living on Syston Street, near Belgrave Gate in St. Margaret’s Parish, in 1871, when the Census-takers came knocking, and were still there when they returned in 1881.
In those days, most children went to school until the age of twelve, after which they were then sent out to work – the boys in the shoe industry and the girls in either the shoe or else one of the cloth industries. Martha was a “fancy hand” in 1871. Ten years later, in 1881, James Pinsent (“junior”) was a “shoe-finisher”, Adrian a “shoe riveter”; their sister Fanny worked in a shoe stockroom and Charlotte was an “assistant shoe machinist”.
Remarkably, all eight of James and Emma’s children married. The three boys, James Pinsent, Adrian Pinsent and Arthur Edwin Pinsent then stayed on in the shoe-trade and each of them had children to further the family line. Their lives are discussed elsewhere.
The girls also married. Charlotte married late – in 1907. She wed a widowed “hosiery trimmer” when she was thirty-seven years old. Presumably she had stayed home to look after her parents. Unfortunately, her father was an inmate of the Leicester “Workhouse” in 1901 (Census) and he died of cancer in the hospital there the following year. Charlotte, meanwhile, was living with her mother and her younger brother, Arthur. She was a “shoe machinist” in 1901. Arthur Pinsent was a “commission agent working on his own account.” What ever that was. Arthur married shortly after the census was taken, and Emma died at their then home, on Westbourne Street, in 1903. This freed Charlotte up to marry and she did so.
Grandfather: James Pinsent: 1769 – 1833
Grandmother: Hannah Brimson: 1766 – xxxx
Father: Thomas Pinsent: 1795 – 1860
Mother: Hannah Johnson: 1800 – 1871
William Pinsent: 1792 – 1844
Thomas Pinsent: 1795 – 1860 ✔️
Anne Pinsent: 1799 – 1801
Richard Pinsent: 1799 – xxxx
Fanny Pinsent: 1804 – xxxx
Jane Pinsent: 1804 – xxxx
William Pinsent: 1822 – xxxx
Thomas Pinsent: 1824 – 1831
James Pinsent: 1831 – 1902 ✔️
John Pinsent: 1836 – 1899
Henry Pinsent: 1838 – 1846
George Pinsent: 1839 – 1857
Charles Pinsent: 1842 – 1882
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James Pinsent: 1892 – 1972 GRO0452 (Soldier and Coal Miner, Nottingham)
Rose Croft: 1893 – 1985
Married: 1914: Basford, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire
Children by Rose Croft:
Rose Pinsent: 1919 – 1988 (Married Stanley Hopewell, 1940, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire)
Violet Pinsent: 1921 – xxxx (Married Frank Bonser, 1939, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire)
May Pinsent: 1923 – 2000 (Married Thomas Victor Smith, 1946)
Family Branch: Tiverton
PinsentID: GRO0452
James was the eldest (surviving) son of James Pinsent and his second wife, Emma Hubbard. He was born in 1893, shortly after his father left his first wife, Emma Elizabeth Poxon, and moved in with Emma Hubbard. Although he was technically illegitimate, the 1911 Census tells us that James and Emma II had been married for 19 years and had five children – which would have included James – despite their being actually married in 1898.
James Pinsent “junior” grew up in Nottingham and likely, like most of his working-class peers, left school and joined the work force at twelve years of age. He started out as a “boot maker” and then became a “miner” in one of the nearby collieries. James married Rose Croft; the daughter of a tailor in Basford, in Nottingham, in August 1914 and joined the army almost immediately afterwards.
His “Pension” and other “Army Records” (Ancestry.com) show that he was 21 years and 10 months old when he enlisted in September 1914. He was 5 feet 5½ inches tall; “slightly underweight” at 98 (lbs); had a fair complexion, grey eyes and light brown hair. James was assigned to the York and Lancaster Regiment as a Private (#15417). He went to France with the regiment August 1915 and served in the trenches. James was promoted to “paid Lance Corporal” on 12th February 1917 – and promptly went AWOL (absent without leave). Needless to say, he was demoted back to private! In June 1917, James received a “G.S.W.” (gun-shot wound (?)) to his left hand thumb and he was repatriated to England to recuperate. He was transferred to the Veterinary Corps. depot at Woolwich “on probation” (#SE33613) in August and from there he was released to the Army Reserve as a “coal miner” at Shirehampton, in June 1918. His records state that on 31st January 1919 he was “discharged as surplus to military requirements having suffered impairment since entry into the service”. His disablement was estimated at 20% and he was awarded a payment of 22 pounds and 15 shillings on his discharge. James was awarded the “Victory” and “British Medals” (Roll RAVC/101B/13 page 663) and the “Star medal” (RAVC/1C/ page 39) for his service over-seas (National Archives WO 372/16).
After the First World War, James stayed on as a colliery worker. He had three daughters, Rose Pinsent, Violet Pinsent and May Pinsent in Nottingham in the years that followed and they all grew up and married – (Violet) shortly before, (Rose) during and (May) after the Second World War. The girls were living with their parents on the Nottingham Road, in Arnold, Nottinghamshire, when the Register was compiled in 1939. It listed James as a “coal hewer – currently incapacitated.” His daughter May Pinsent was presumably light on her feet. She was a dancer and a pupil of the Venton School. There is a photograph of her in the touring pantomime “Babes in the Wood” in the Nottingham Evening Post (Friday 3rd January 1936).
Rose Pinsent, worked as a draper in Nottingham in 1941 (Kelly’s Directory), and she probably continued to do so after the war. She died in Nottingham in December 1985 (Nottingham Evening Post: Wednesday 18th December 1985). Her husband James had predeceased her; he died in Basford, in 1972 (Nottingham Evening Post: Friday 29th December 1972).
Grandfather: James Pinsent: 1831 – 1902
Grandmother: Emma Jackson: 1831 – 1903
Father: James Pinsent: 1862 – 1936
Mother: Emma Hubbard: 1863 – 1939
Hannah Martha Pinsent: 1857 – xxxx
Georgiana Pinsent: 1859 – 1925
James Pinsent: 1862 – 1936 ✔️
Adrian Pinsent: 1864 – 1945
Fanny Pinsent: 1866 – 1940
Charlotte Ann Pinsent: 1868 – xxxx
Emily Pinsent: 1870 – xxxx
Arthur Edwin Pinsent: 1872 – 1938
Thomas Pinsent: 1885 – 1976
James Pinsent: 1886 – 1886
Arthur Pinsent: 1888 – 1889
James Pinsent: 1892 – 1972 
Arthur Pinsent: 1894 – 1940
Albert Pinsent: 1896 – 1980
Lawrence Pinsent: 1899 – 1991
Also:
Henry Pinsent: 1884 – xxxx (?)
George Pinsent: 1886 – xxxx (?)
Ernest Pinsent: 1890 – xxxx (?)
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Birth: 1886
Marriage: N/A
Spouse: N/A
Death: 1886
Family Branch: Tiverton
PinsentID: GRO0451
Grandfather: James Pinsent: 1831 – 1902
Grandmother: Emma Jackson: 1831 – 1903
Father: James Pinsent: 1862 – 1936
Mother: Emma Elizabeth Poxon: 1865 – 1892
Hannah Martha Pinsent: 1857 – xxxx
Georgiana Pinsent: 1859 – 1925
James Pinsent: 1862 – 1936 ✔️
Adrian Pinsent: 1864 – 1945
Fanny Pinsent: 1866 – 1940
Charlotte Ann Pinsent: 1868 – xxxx
Emily Pinsent: 1870 – xxxx
Arthur Edwin Pinsent: 1872 – 1938
Thomas Pinsent: 1885 – 1976
James Pinsent: 1886 – 1886 ✔️
Arthur Pinsent: 1888 – 1889
James Pinsent: 1892 – 1972
Arthur Pinsent: 1894 – 1940
Albert Pinsent: 1896 – 1980
Lawrence Pinsent: 1899 – 1991
Also:
Henry Pinsent: 1884 – xxxx (?)
George Pinsent: 1886 – xxxx (?)
Ernest Pinsent: 1891 – xxxx (?)
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James Pinsent: 1862 – 1936 GRO0450 Tiverton (Soldier, Publican and Licensed Grocer, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire)
1. Emma Elizabeth Poxon: 1865 – 1892
Married: 1884: Leicester, Leicestershire
Children by Emma Elizabeth Poxon:
Thomas Pinsent: 1885 – 1976 (Married Lily Gertrude Elliott, 1906)
James Pinsent: 1886 – 1886
Arthur Pinsent: 1888 – 1889
Florence Annie Pinsent: 1890 – 1890
2. Emma Hubbard: 1863 – 1939
Married: 1898: Snenton, Nottinghamshire
Children by Emma Hubbard:
James Pinsent: 1892 – 1972 (Married Rose Croft, 1914, Basford, Nottinghamshire)
Arthur Pinsent: 1894 – 1940 (Married Marie Cassidy, xxxx xxxx)
Albert Pinsent: 1896 – 1980 (Married Linsey Jane Sarby, 1920, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire)
Lawrence Pinsent: 1899 – 1991 (Married Florence Clementson Collingham, 1926, New Basford, Nottinghamshire)
Florence May Pinsent: 1900 – 1999 (Married Walter John Perkins, 1927, Sherwood, Nottinghamshire)
Also:
Henry Pinsent: 1884 – xxxx (?)
George Pinsent: 1886 – xxxx (?)
Ernest Pinsent: 1891 – xxxx (?)
Family Branch: Tiverton
PinsentID: GRO0450
James Pinsent was the eldest son of James and Emma (née Jackson). He was born in Loughborough in 1862 but grew up in Leicester – after his parents moved there, in around 1865. James’s family lived on Syston Street and he went to a school nearby until he was about twelve years of age. He was then put to work. Predictably, he followed his father and his grandfather into the boot and shoe business. He was a nineteen-year old “shoe finisher” by the time of the 1881 Census.
James joined the Leicester Militia [Leicestershire Regiment – 17th Foot] later that same year. The “Attestation Papers” (findmypast.com) that he signed show that he had previously worked as a “shoe finisher,” first for his father and then for a Mr. Hinton. The papers also tell us that he was 5 feet 8.5 inches tall; he had a fresh complexion, grey eyes and brown hair. James had had his appendix removed, but beyond that he displayed no obvious distinguishing features. He served with the militia for five years, between 1880 and 1885.
James moved to Nottingham and married Emma Elizabeth Poxon, the daughter of a licensed victualler, in 1884. Her father and mother ran the “Four Arms” public house on Plumtree Square in Nottingham, and Emma Elizabeth died there a few years later, in 1892. She had split up with James and returned to live with her family. It must have been an acrimonious split as she had had to ask the Court for a maintenance order. James failed to prove misconduct on her part and the Magistrates instructed him to give her an allowance of 6s a week (Nottingham Evening Post: Thursday 24th September 1891).
In 1898, James (rather confusingly) married another Emma (Emma Hubbard). This was several years after his previous wife died, in March 1892. Emma II was a widow and a “lace hand.” She was approximately the same age as James and she seems to have brought some of her own children into the marriage.
James and Emma Elizabeth (née Poxon) had had at least four children before they split up; however, three; James, Arthur and Florence Annie Pinsent had died young. Florence was, sadly, only eleven weeks old when she was accidentally suffocated while sleeping in her parent’s bed (Nottingham Evening Post: Tuesday 28th October 1890).
Their remaining (and eldest) son, Thomas Pinsent, was listed as a “scholar” in the 1891 Census. However, he was notably absent from James’s family when the Census takers returned ten years later. His mother, Emma Elizabeth, had taken him with her when she went back to live with her parents, the Poxons. In 1901, he was an “errand boy” living with his grandmother, Elizabeth Poxon – who was a retired Inn Keeper. Thomas kept the Pinsent name. He grew up and married and is life is discussed elsewhere.
The 1901 Census shows that James was by then living with his second wife Emma (née Hubbard) a “lace clipper,” and with a blended family composed of their children AND (most likely) with several children from Emma’s first marriage. The 1901 Census shows that James’s eldest putative son, Henry Pinsent, was a seventeen-year-old “collar maker.” This is the only reference I can find to him, so he likely reverted to using his birth father’s surname. Similarly, the Census refer to George Pinsent, a “pasteboard maker” aged fifteen years. This is also the only mention of him that I can find and he too may have reverted to his original family name – whatever that was. James’s third putative son Ernest Pinsent was a “scholar” aged eleven at the time of the 1901 census. His parentage is debatable. My guess is that he was not a Pinsent by birth. James’s younger children; James Pinsent aged eight; Arthur Pinsent aged six and Albert Pinsent aged five were also “scholars” living in the family home on Lower Eldon Street. They probably are Pinsents; although James fathered them before he married Emma in 1898. The couple went on to add two more children after they married.
James and Emma Hubbard clearly lived together for some time as they told the census taker in 1911 that they had been married for 19 years (i.e. since 1892 – not since 1898!) and had had five children. If this is correct, it suggests that the first three children named in the census that year (James, Arthur and Albert) are Pinsents, even though they were born before their parents married. James and Emma had two perfectly legitimate children, Lawrence Pinsent and Florence May Pinsent.
The boys are discussed below. The 1921 census tells us that James was employed by R. Moore, jnr. of Front Street, in Arnold, as a “boot and shoe finisher.” His wife, had household duties at 25 Osborne Street, in Sherwood, to attend to and three of his children, Arthur, Lawrence and May were at home but by then in the work force. Arthur was a “coal miner” employed by “Manvers Main Colliery Company”, near Rotherham, in Yorkshire. Lawrence was a “fitters mate” working for the “Locomotive Running Department of the Great Central Railway” at Annesley and May was a “cotton slip mender” employed by “Ashwell and Co. Hosiery Dyers & Finishers”, in Basford. Florence May married a “tram car conductor,” Walter John Perkins, in 1927.
Ernest Pinsent had left home by 1911. The census records for that year show that he was a “coal miner” lodging with a family in Nottingham. The records also show that his half brothers, James, Arthur, Albert and Lawrence were also employed in Nottingham. They were working as “miners” and or “loaders” at one or other of the collieries. Whether they worked at the same one as Ernest, I do not know.
James (junior) married Rose Croft. He served in the army during the First World War and then returned to working in the coal mines. His life is described elsewhere. His brother Arthur Pinsent went on to become a “stoker.” He was living in Nottingham with his wife Marie (nee Cassidy) and their two daughters in 1939 but died the following year “after suffering patiently borne” (Nottingham Evening Post: Monday 22nd January 1940). Stokers were extremely susceptible to silicosis and other dust-related diseases. After his death, Arthur’s sister-in-law, Linsey, acknowledged the support the family had received from “all at North Wilford Power Station” (Nottingham Evening Post: Saturday 27th January 1940). His widow Marie (née Cassidy) put an “In Memoriam” notice in the same paper – on her own behalf, and of that of their two children, “Dorothy and baby Audrey” on 21st January 1943. She did so again in January 1949 (Nottingham Evening Post: Friday 21st January 1949); however, she was by then ready to remarry. She married William Anthony Wing, in Nottingham, in June 1949. Dorothy May married a Mr. George Middleton, who was serving in the Royal Air Force, in August 1944. Her younger sister Audrey Jean was a bridesmaid at the wedding (Nottingham Journal: Monday 28th August 1944). She too was later to marry.
Arthur’s brother Albert Pinsent was a “stoker” when he married Linsey Jane Sarby in 1920. According to the census the following year he was employed by the “Nottingham Corporation Electricity Department” and was living with “Tiny Jane” on Queen’s Grove, in Nottingham. Albert was later, more fancifully perhaps, referred to as a “pulverized fuel steam operator” at an electrical power station when the war-time register was compiled in 1939. I am not aware of any children by the marriage. Linsey died in 1971, after a painful illness. Her husband posted an acknowledgment of the support he had received during her illness and in the wake of her death (Nottingham Evening Post: Saturday 27th November 1971). Albert died in Nottingham in 1980.
Lawrence, the youngest son of James by Emma Hubbard also served in the army during the First World War. He went on to become an “electrical engineer”; he married and had three children, including a son. His life is described elsewhere. It is worth noting that Lawrence and Albert were both living on Owthorpe Grove, in Nottingham at the outset of the Second World War and their mother, Emma Pinsent, was living with Lawrence when the 1939 Register was compiled. She died shortly afterwards. Lawrence’s discussion also refers to his brother Albert.
By 1911, James Pinsent (senior) was a “grocer”, living with his wife Emma and their five children on King Meadow Road in Nottingham. However, he was acknowledged to be “formerly a boot and shoe finisher” when he died of cancer in the City Hospital in Nottingham in June 1936: his “suffering patiently borne” (Nottingham Evening Post: Tuesday 26th May 1936).
Emma Pinsent (née Hubbard) went to live with her youngest son, Lawrence and his wife Florence on Owthorpe Grove in Nottingham. She died there in 1939 (Nottingham Journal: Friday 22nd December 1939). The Calendar of Grants of Probate and Letters of Administration shows that the Probate of her limited estate was granted to two of her sons, James and Lawrence.
Grandfather: Thomas Pinsent: 1795 – 1860
Grandmother: Hannah Johnson: 1800 – 1871
Father: James Pinsent: 1831 – 1902
Mother: Emma Jackson: 1831 – 1903
Fanny Pinsent: 1820 – 1880
William Pinsent: 1822 – xxxx
Thomas Pinsent: 1824 – 1831
Caroline Pinsent: 1825 – 1864
James Pinsent: 1831 – 1902 ✔️
Elizabeth Pinsent: 1833 – 1833
Elizabeth Pinsent: 1833 – xxxx
John Pinsent: 1836 – 1899
Henry Pinsent: 1838 – 1846
George Pinsent: 1839 – 1857
Charles Pinsent: 1842 – 1882
James Pinsent: 1862 – 1936 ✔️
Adrian Pinsent: 1864 – 1945
Arthur Edwin Pinsent: 1872 – 1938
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James Pinsent: 1837 – 1912 GRO0447 (Green-grocer and Fruit Market Salesman, Hackney and Islingon, London, Middlesex)
Sarah Savage: 1839 – 1914
Married: London, Middlesex: 1858
Children by Sarah Savage:
George James Pinsent: 1859 – 1860
James Walter Pinsent: 1861 – 1948 (Married Hannah Brooks, 1882, London, Middlesex)
Sarah Lydia Pinsent: 1863 – 1942 (Married William Francis Stevens, 1889, London, Middlesex)
Joseph Benjamin Pinsent: 1865 – 1897 (Married Elizabeth Fanny Boulter, 1890, London, Middlesex)
Louisa Mary Pinsent: 1867 – xxxx (Married John Fluskey, 1884, London, Middlesex)
William John Pinsent: 1869 – 1918 (Married Rose Emeline Parsons, 1891, London, Middlesex)
Martha Elizabeth Pinsent*: 1871 – xxxx
Thomas Henry Pinsent: 1873 – 1910 (Married Bessie Ada Penn, 1892, London, Middlesex)
Georgina Frances Pinsent: 1875 – xxxx (Married Frederick Charles Rawlinson, 1897, London, Middlesex)
Albert Hibbard Pinsent: 1878 – 1878
Edward Charles Pinsent: 1878 – 1878
George Hibbard Pinsent: 1879 – 1953 (Married Amelia unknown, xxxx, xxxx, xxxx)
Alexander Sidney Pinsent: 1884 – 1911
*Martha’s illegitimate child: May Lilian Pinsent: 1892 – 1892
Family Branch: Tiverton
PinsentID: GRO0447
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James was the second eldest of Benjamin Pinsent (a “carpenter” and “cabinet-maker’s”) three surviving sons – Samuel Benjamin, James and Joseph – by his wife, Mira (née Burgoyne). He was probably the only one to have married and had children. James was born in Islington, in London, and grew up in the slums of Clerkenwell. He was a “general labourer” and “railway porter “ in 1858 when he married Sarah Savage, the daughter of “cooper” from St. Pancras. When the 1861 census was taken, they were living on Galway Street, in St. Luke’s parish. They had a large family (nine boys and four girls) over the next twenty-five years.
James graduated to being a “market porter” and when the census was taken a decade later he was living on Church Row in St. Luke’s parish with his wife and their three young sons (James, Joseph and William) and two daughters (Sarah and Louisa). The family moved from St. Luke’s to St. Leonard’s parish in nearby Hackney and when the next census was taken in 1871, James was described as being a “fruit dealer” living at 2a Witchampton Street. He was living there with his wife and nine children. The census refers to James’s eldest son as a “Thomas Pinsent” who was an “insurance collector”. This is probably wrong. The entry should refer to “James Walter Pinsent”. James’s second son Joseph was marked down as an “apprentice.” From what we can establish later, he was probably apprenticed to a jeweler. Sarah, James’s eldest daughter, was a “post card bander” – whatever that was. The other children were either scholars, youngsters or – in one case, not yet born!
In 1880, the British Government decreed that all children should go to school until the age of ten. This move certainly provided the younger members of the Pinsent family with more opportunities. James’s daughter Martha Elizabeth Pinsent attended “St. Luke’s (parish) public school” before her family moved to Witchampton Street. She was admitted to “Chatham Gardens School” in Hackney in October 1879, and to nearby “Church Street Temporary School” in November 1881 (London, England, School Admissions and Discharges, 1840-1911: Ancestry.com). Her younger brother Thomas Henry Pinsent was admitted to the “Church Street Temporary School” in October 1881 and her little sister, Georgina Frances Pinsent was admitted in 1883. Presumably their elder siblings received some education in St. Luke’s. At least the family was literate again and was able to take advantage of better employment opportunities.
James seems to have run his “fruit” business out of “Farringdon Market”. While working there in March 1888, he was sued for damages amounting to £19 1s 6d. The nature of the complaint is unstated (Commercial Gazette: Wednesday 21st March 1888).
The family moved to Woodville Road in Islington, Stoke Newington sometime n the early 1880s and it was there that James’s granddaughter Edith Hannah Pinsent (daughter of his son Walter James Pinsent by his wife, Hannah, nee Brooks) was probably born in 1885 and certainly died in 1887. The family was also living there when James’s eldest daughter, Sarah Lydia Pinsent, married William Francis Stephens, a “messenger,” in 1889 and when the census takers made their rounds a couple of years later. By then, two more of their children (Joseph Benjamin and Mary Louisa Pinsent) had married and left home; however, there had been one more arrival, Sarah (née Savage’s) last child, Alexander Sidney Pinsent who arrived on the scene in 1884.
Joseph Benjamin Pinsent married Mary Boulter, the daughter of a “carpenter” and Mary Louisa married, John Flusky, a “coachman” who was son of a “horse dealer”. Interestingly, the Pinsents still seems to have been a Baptist family and Mary Louisa was not formally baptized until November 1885, after her marriage (London, England, Births & Baptisms 1813-1906 (Ancestry.com). Her younger brother, William John Pinsent, was a “market porter” (probably working for his father). He married Rose Emmeline Parsons, the daughter of a “bootmaker” a few months after the census was taken in 1891.
Martha Elizabeth had an illegitimate daughter, May Lilian Pinsent in July 1892. She was living with her sister Mrs. Stevens (Sarah Lydia, née Pinsent) at the time. Martha’s “Poor Law Removal and Settlement Record” (Ancestry.com) says that she told the magistrates that she was living at home with her parents “until I got into trouble …”. After her confinement, she took the child back to her parent’s house in Woodville Road but it died a few months later. Martha Elizabeth married a “sailor,” Thomas Hefferman, in August 1893. Whether he had been the cause of her earlier predicament, I have no idea.
London’s Electoral Registers show that James and his family were still living at 31 Woodville Road (which was probably also his shop) in 1898 and 1899, and the 1901 census tells us that he was a “fruit salesman operating on his own account” who was living with his wife and their two remaining sons. The elder of the two, George (Hibbard) was a “clerk in a hardware store”, and the younger, Alexander (Sidney) was an “auctioneer’s clerk”. George would later become a Baptist Missionary in Canada. He left Liverpool bound for Montreal and points west on the “S.S. Victorian” on the 17th May 1907. He married while in Canada and settled in Lloydminster in Saskatchewan. Alexander Sidney, meanwhile, stayed home with his parents. George’s elder sister Georgina Frances Pinsent married Frederick Charles Rawlinson in 1897 and they too went out to Canada. Presumably they went out to join up George and his family. They became Canadian Citizens in 1910 and were living in Battleford, (near Lloydminster) in Saskatchewan in 1916 (Canada Census of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta: 1916).
The Electoral Registers confirm that James and Sarah (née Savage) lived on Woodville Road up to 1908; however, by 1910, they had moved into a house on Mildmay Road in Islington with their youngest son Alexander Sidney and one of their daughters. When the 1911 Census was taken, James was a (presumably retired?) “fruit-market salesman.” London’s Electoral Registers also show that James was the head of the household. However, he shared the house with his daughter Sarah Lydia and her husband William Francis Stevens (who was a “printer’s warehouseman”) – and with one of their children. James told the census takers in 1911 that he had been married to his wife Sarah for fifty-three years and that they had had thirteen children. Eight were then still alive. Sadly, Alexander Sidney Pinsent died unmarried later that year.
James Pinsent was living on Brighton Road in Hackney when he died in 1912. Sarah stayed on in the same house and she too died there, in 1914. They had no less that five sons (James Walter; Joseph Benjamin, William John, Thomas Henry and George Hibbard Pinsent) who grew up and married and had children. Their lives are described elsewhere.
Grandfather: Benjamin Pinsent: 1776 – 1819
Grandmother: Esther Best: 1773 – 1868
Father: Benjamin Pinsent: 1808 – xxxx
Mother: Myra Burgoyne: 1815 – 1869
Samuel Benjamin Pinsent: 1794 – xxxx
William Pinsent: 1795 – xxxx
Ann Pinsent: 1797 – xxxx
William Pinsent: 1799 – xxxx
Sarah Lucy Pinsent: 1800 – xxxx
Esther Pinsent: 1805 – xxxx
Benjamin Pinsent: 1805 – xxxx
Benjamin Pinsent: 1808 – xxxx
William Pinsent: 1812 – 1893
Emily Pinsent: 1815 – xxxx
Amelia Pinsent: 1818 – xxxx
Samuel Benjamin Pinsent: 1833 – xxxx
James Pinsent: 1837 – 1912
Joseph Pinsent: 1840 – 1841
Edward Brand Pinsent: 1845 – 1846
George Henry Pinsent: 1847 – 1849
John Pinsent: 1850 – 1856
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Birth: 1899
Marriage: N/A
Spouse: N/A
Death: 1899
Family Branch: Tiverton
PinsentID: GRO0446
Grandfather: John Pinsent: 1836 – 1899
Grandmother: Elizabeth Johnson: 1837 – 1909
Father: Henry Pinsent: 1871 – 1939
Mother: Elizabeth Phillis: 1872 – 1913
Sarah Jane Pinsent: 1855 – 1855
Thomas Johnson Pinsent: 1856 – 1925
John Henry Pinsent: 1858 – 1861
George Pinsent: 1861 – 1932
Eliza Pinsent: 1863 – xxxx
Louisa Pinsent: 1865 – 1945
Ada Pinsent: 1867 – xxxx
John Arthur Pinsent: 1869 – 1930
Henry Pinsent: 1871 – 1939
William Horace Pinsent: 1874 – 1876
Horace Pinsent: 1879 – 1949
John Harry Pinsent: 1892 – xxxx
Vincent Horace Pinsent: 1893 – 1893
Arthur Ellis Pinsent: 1895 – 1895
Harry Pinsent: 1896 – 1957
Horace Pinsent: 1897 – 1898
Jack Pinsent: 1899 – 1899
George Pinsent: 1901 – 1902
John Pinsent: 1911 – xxxx
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Birth: 1909
Marriage: 1928
Spouse: George J. Sawyer
Death: N/A
Family Branch: Tiverton
PinsentID: GRO0445
Grandfather: James Pinsent: 1837 – 1912
Grandmother: Sarah Savage: 1839 – 1914
Father: William John Pinsent: 1869 – 1918 ✔️
Mother: Rose Emeline Parsons: 1872 – 1950
George James Pinsent: 1859 – 1860
James Walter Pinsent: 1861 – 1948
Sarah Lydia Pinsent: 1863 – 1942
Joseph Benjamin Pinsent: 1865 – 1897
Louisa Mary Pinsent: 1867 – xxxx
William John Pinsent: 1869 – 1918 ✔️
Martha Elizabeth Pinsent: 1871 – xxxx
Thomas Henry Pinsent: 1873 – 1910
Georgina Frances Pinsent: 1875 – xxxx
Albert Hibbard Pinsent: 1878 – 1878
Edward Charles Pinsent: 1878 – 1878
George Hibbard Pinsent: 1879 – 1953
Alexander Sidney Pinsent: 1884 – 1911
William George James Pinsent: 1892 – 1963
Sidney Henry Pinsent: 1895 – 1979
Henry Thomas Pinsent: 1896 – 1897
Leonard Charles Pinsent: 1898 – 1974
Bertram Horace Pinsent: 1904 – 1967
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Birth: 1895
Marriage: 1922
Spouse: Harold Edward Hubbard
Death: 1972
Family Branch: Tiverton
PinsentID: GRO0443
Grandfather: John Pinsent: 1836 – 1899
Grandmother: Elizabeth Johnson: 1837 – 1909
Father: George Pinsent: 1861 – 1932
Mother: Elizabeth Norman: 1859 – 1932
Sarah Jane Pinsent: 1855 – 1855
Thomas Johnson Pinsent: 1856 – 1925
John Henry Pinsent: 1858 – 1861
Eliza Pinsent: 1863 – xxxx
Louisa Pinsent: 1865 – 1945
Ada Pinsent: 1867 – xxxx
John Arthur Pinsent: 1869 – 1930
Henry Pinsent: 1871 – 1939
William Horace Pinsent: 1874 – 1876
Horace Pinsent: 1879 – 1949
John Thomas Pinsent: 1880 – 1880
Tom Pinsent: 1883 – 1935
George William Pinsent: 1885 – 1939
Arthur Pinsent: 1889 – 1890
Horace James Pinsent: 1896 – 1972
Benjamin Charles Pinsent: 1900 – 1900
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