Thomas Pinsent: 1615 – 1690 DRO0130 (Gentleman of Woodland)
1) Thomasine Smerdon: xxxx – xxxx
Married: 1641: Exeter, Devon
Children by Thomasine Smerdon:
Elizabeth Pinsent: xxxx – xxxx (Married John Battishill, Woodland, Devon 1672.)
2) Joanna Berry: xxxx – 1688
Married: 1663: Woodland, Devon
Family Branch: Combe
PinsentID: DRO0130
Thomas was the third son of Jonas Pinsent of Bovey Tracey by his wife Elizabeth. He grew up with four brothers – John, who died while still a young man, Jonas, who stayed on in Bovey Tracey, Edward, who became vicar of Loddiswell and Ellis, who became a merchant in Exeter.
Thomas moved to Woodland parish near Ashburton, approximately five miles to the southwest of Bovey Tracey, while still a young man. According to the Rev. H. R. Evans who wrote an article on Woodland for the “Transactions of the Devonshire Association (Vol XCII)” in 1960, “for over fifty years in the 17th Century the Pinsents lived at Higher Lake and took a leading part in parochial affairs.” He was right about that, although some of his other observations have not withstood the test of time. Rev. H. R. Evans was probably right in saying that Thomas Pinsent arrived in Woodland “soon after 1631” and that he married Thomasine Smerdon, of Bickington, in Exeter, in 1641. They had a daughter, Elizabeth, but I do not know where or when.
Thomasine must have died as her husband remarried. He married Joanna Berry of Halwell in Woodland Parish Church in 1663. Joanna was said to be an heiress in her own right. He was 48 years old. I do not know her age and I am not aware of them having had children. Elizabeth seems to have been Thomas’s only child.
A survey taken in Woodland in 1653 (Woodland Deeds) shows that Thomas’ land was valued (for taxable purposes?) at £10 and his personal goods at 10s. Interesting, the survey also found that his brother-in-law, William Cullinge’s properties were valued at £9 and £15 respectively. William Cullinge had married Thomas’s sister Elizabeth (not his daughter – as the Rev. Evans had surmised) – in 1650. The same survey shows that there was a widow, Amy Pinsent, with property in the parish valued at £1 10s 0d. She was the Reverend Edward Pinsent’s widow – and thus Thomas’s sister-in-law. Her husband had died in Loddiswell in 1652. The Rev. Evans was correct in saying that the family was well represented in the parish!
In 1661, Thomas Pinsent witnessed the signing of a deed by force of which William Venning resigned the trusteeship granted to him by an earlier deed, dated April 1658, by which William Cullinge bought the freehold and manorial rights of his dwelling, in Woodland, from Sir Richard Chivaton, Lord Mayor of London, and John Potless, Esquire, of Sherdon Hall, Suffolk. Thomas’s sister Elizabeth had clearly married a rich man.
Sometime the late 1690s or early 1670s, Thomas’s nephew Jonas – the son of his brother Jonas “being a single man and minding to travel into France and other places beyond the seas” was persuaded to ask his uncle “with whose daughter (viz) Elizabeth …. your executor had designed to marry as soon as he returned,” to look after his estate (C5/106/53). He handed him the documents that establishing his right to Henstreete (valued at £50 per annum), Hore’s (£30 per annum) and Hart’s (£30 per annum) and other smaller properties in Bovey Tracey and Dartmouth and took off for the Continent. However, before he did so, he signed a document that stated that, should he die while abroad, the properties were to pass to Thomas and then to his cousin (Thomas’s) daughter, Elizabeth and her heirs. Unfortunately, he seems to have failed to keep or he lost his counterpart copy. What could possibly go wrong!
It is not clear how committed Jonas was to marrying Elizabeth, or she him; however, she married John Battishill in Woodland in 1672. I do not know when Jonas returned but many years later, in 1693, he felt it necessary to sue John and Elizabeth in the Court of Chancery (C5/106/53) for the return of some of his documents. Jonas said that when he got back from his travels his uncle Thomas refused to return them! The issue was, presumably, thrashed out in the lower courts. Nevertheless, after Thomas’s death in 1690, Jonas may have done so to prevent “Elizabeth and her heirs” inheriting his lands as laid out in his original transfer document. Jonas’s life is discussed elsewhere.
Thomas not only controlled Jonas’s properties while he was away, but he acquired Higher Lake farm in Woodland in 1671 (Moulton’s Catalogue of Deeds) and it was his principal residence until he died in 1690. He may have previously held a lease on the property. Thomas also leased other land. The Somerset Archives hold several documents relating to property controlled by Nicholas Wadham between 1654 and 1697. These refer to Thomas’s leasehold interest in a property called Howton “otherwise Houghton,” in Highweek (Somerset-cat.swheritage.org.uk/records/). The property also features in a case in Chancery that Thomas launched against Samuel Segar “gent.” the same year (C5/69/69).
Between them, the documents show that Thomas acquired a 99-year lease of one twelfth part of Howton based on three lives – his own, that of his daughter Elizabeth and of one John Prowse, in 1659. A few years later – in 1664, he obtained an additional third part of Howton from Sir John Strangeways on his own life and those of Joane Berry and his daughter Elizabeth. Not content with that, he went on to acquire another third from Sir William Wyndham on the lives of himself, his daughter Elizabeth and Ellis Pinsent (the son of his sister-in-law, Amy) in 1670. (swheritage.org.uk/records/DD/WY/5/13/83).
The Chancery dispute came about because Thomas, who leased 9/12th of the property in 1671, felt that Samuel Segar – who held the rest “floods the area with horses, cattle, oxen and takes more that he should.” He wanted to subdivide the property but Samuel refused to consider it, because Thomas was only a partial leaseholder (C6/69/69) and had no authority to do so. Thomas was later to write to John Wyndham at Salisbury, concerning the heriots required (a one-off payment to the lord of the manor) when of one of the tenants of the manor of Howton died in 1686. Thomas’s partial lease of Howton stayed in the family and passed to his daughter Elizabeth and her family after his death. Her son, Mr. Pinsent Battishill, still held a third of it in 1705.
Thomas Pynsent of Woodland, “gent.” held other properties as well. In 1683, he and his wife Johan, (daughter and co-heir of Edward Berry, deceased and co-heir of John Berry, deceased, both late of Harberton), and John Battishill of Engsdon, Ilsington, and his wife Elizabeth (daughter of Thomas Pynsent) were party to a “release in fee” of several properties in Hallwell and Harberton valued at £400 (DRO: 48/14/80/3).
A note taken from the parish deeds describes how, in 1687, a lady named Margaret accused Thomas of wanting to place his daughter in her pew – this would have been a sensitive issue at the time as life in Woodland would have been centred around the church and seating denoted status. The note seems to suggest that Thomas’s daughter Elizabeth had returned home to live with her father, who was one of the “four men” of the parish (elected or appointed to deal with issues arising in the village). He was a church warden in 1672 and also in 1690, the year he died.
There is a large stone slab on the wall of the church at Woodland that reads “In Memoriam Thomae Pynsent de Lake Gen Qvi obit Decimo Tertio die Maii Anno Domini 1690: Aetalis Suae 75.” It also shows his coat of arms in black and white. Interestingly, the etoiles, or mullets, have six points. The prothonotary has five – see elsewhere].
Family Tree
Grandparents
Grandfather: Hugh Pinsent: 1540 – 1626
Grandmother:Johanna Woodley: xxxx – xxxx
Parents
Father: Jonas Pinsent: 1575 – 1637
Mother: Elizabeth Unknown: xxxx – xxxx
Father’s Siblings (Aunts, Uncles)
Jonas Pinsent: 1575 – 1637
Peter Pinsent: 1576 – 1597
Rechord Pinsent: 1578 – xxxx
John Pinsent: xxxx – xxxx
William Pinsent: 1580 – xxxx
Margaret Pinsent: 1582 – xxxx
Mary Pinsent: xxxx – 1584
Thomas Pinsent: 1586 – xxxx
Agnes Pinsent: 1589 – xxxx
Hugh Pinsent: 1591 – xxxx
George Pinsent: 1593 – xxxx
Jane Pinsent: 1594 – xxxx
Matthew Pinsent: 1596 – 1616
Male Siblings (Brothers)
Jonas Pinsent: 1609 – 1658
Edward Pinsent: 1611 – 1652
Thomas Pinsent: 1615 – 1690
Ellis Pinsent: 1619 – 1681
John Pinsent: 1622 – 1648
Please use the above links to explore this branch of the family tree. The default “Next” and “Previous” links below may lead to other unrelated branches.