Thomas Pinsent “of Huxbeare” married Julian Stidstone in Hennock in 1617. He had three sons who are known to have married and had sons themselves who coul, potentially have taken the DEVONPORT line forward. The eldest of these was Robert Pinsent who married Urith Woolcombe from the neighbouring parish of Chudleigh in 1650. He took over the main family farm when his father died; however, his descendants struggled through a series of epidemics that hit Hennock and the neighbouring parishes in the early 1700s. The Pinsent family’s link to Huxbeare ended when Robert’s great grandson, another Robert Pinsent (“ye fourth of Huxbeare”), died in 1711.
Thomas’s second son, John Pinsent, married Philippa Wilmeade and inherited his father’s second, presumably smaller, farm at Knighton (near what is now Chudleigh Knighton) at the south end of Hennock parish. They were successful and made it through the epidemics of the early 1700s. John and Philippa’s descendants have brought the DEVONPORT line down into modern times.
Thomas’s third and youngest son, another Thomas, married Philippa’s sister Julian Wilmeade and inherited a nearby tannery at Slade (also in Hennock). They probably had a son, Thomas, who inherited the tannery. However, if so, his birth data are missing. For this reason, the latter Thomas Pinsent and his descendants have been assigned to a separate branch of the family–the HENNOCK branch, which is discussed elsewhere.
John and Philippa named their eldest son Thomas Pinsent. He married Catherine Parker and they had three sons. Sadly, they all seem to have died, presumably by the same plagues that afflicted their “cousins” at Huxbeare. Thomas was, sadly, predeceased by his sons and he himself died in 1711.
Fortunately, John and Philippa’s youngest son, Robert, survived. He acquired land at Kelly, also in Hennock, when he married Elizabeth Delve in 1684. The couple ran a successful “soap-boiling” operation and kept a shop that they passed down through several generations. Their grandson, Mr. John Pinsent built on their success. He became a wealthy merchant who made soap and candles in Mortonhampstead. His son, another John, took over the business for a few years but he was infirm when his father died in 1800 and he himself died in 1804. The business was sold shortly thereafter.
By then, one of Mr. John’s grandsons, Thomas Pinsent, was ready to marry Mary Savery, the daughter of a local serge cloth manufacturer. He set up in business as a “draper” in Devonport and did very well for himself – particularly as he strategically placed his store in a Naval hub during the Napoleonic Wars. Thomas bought a brewery for one of his sons (John Ball Pinsent). He transferred the drapery to another (Richard Steele Pinsent) and he saw that a third (Savery Pinsent) was trained to be a lawyer. Savery went out to Natal, a British Colony in Southern Africa and was the Mayor of Durban for a couple of years in the late-1850s. He never married but returned home to Devon after his father died in 1872. Savery, like his parents and grandparents before him, was a Baptist and he spent his retirement years dedicated to philanthropy.
His brother, John Ball Pinsent’s descendants ran the brewery for a couple of generation but it was a small country operation and unable to compete with the larger, City-based operations. William Swain Pinsent ran the brewery after his father, John Ball (senior) and his brother John Ball (junior) died but few of their descendant seem to have had much interest in it, and it was bought out by Heavytree Breweries of Exeter in 1919. William Swain was a noted breeder of poultry and horses in the late 1800s and was active in the administration of Highweek parish- which covers part of Newton Abbot. The younger generations seem to have been less successful. A few were more interested in sport than business. They gradually dispersed throughout the south of England. One even made it across to Canada.
Richard Steele Pinsent died relatively young and the drapery passed to a nephew. When his own children grew up they also dispersed. Adolphus Ross Pinsent went out to Montevideo (Uruguay) for a while and then came home to promote British investment in Argentina. His branch of the family still has strong South American connections. Another of Richard Steele’s sons, Richard Alfred, moved to Birmingham where he articled as a solicitor and married into the locally well-known Ryland family. He started the firm of “Pinsent & Co.” in 1877. His brother (Hume Chancellor Pinsent) joined him a few years later. Despite grievous loses in the First World War, Richard Steele’s DEVONPORT descendants have had distinguished careers in the Civil Service, law, army and navy, Church, art and, more recently, sport. Richard Alfred was appointed to a baronetcy in 1937 and his great grandson, Matthew Clive was knighted for services to sport (rowing) in 2005.
The following is a brief summary of the DEVONORT Branch of the Pinsent family. For a full listing of individual members visit the FAMILY BRANCH page and for more information on individual sons click through and read their biographies.
Huxbeare
Robert Pinsent (1624 – 1671):
First Son of Thomas and Julian Stidstone
Robert Pinsent was the eldest of Thomas and Julian Stidstone’s sons. He married Urith Woolcombe of Chudleigh in 1650 and had two sons, Robert Pinsent (1654 – 1686) and Thomas Pinsent (1663 – xxxx) as well as four daughters. Robert inherited Huxbeare and Crosseda Downs from his father and presumably ran the farm, although the parish accounts suggest that it was his mother (Julian née Stidstone) who was in charge up until her death in around 1658.
Robert and Urith’s first-born son, another Robert, was a teenager when his father died, in 1671. He, in turn, inherited the farm and, a few years later (1677) married Mary Hamlyn of Widdicombe. They had sons that they somewhat predictably called Robert Pinsent (1678 – 1707) and Thomas Pinsent (1685 – 1694). Robert Pinsent, senior, was only 32 years old when he died in 1686. This left his widow, Mary (née Hamlyn) with two young sons to look after, so she remarried a few years later. Her new husband (Richard Hart) seems to have farmed Huxbeare until Mary’s eldest son, the next Robert Pinsent, came of age.
Robert married Elizabeth Voisey and they too had two sons, another Robert Pinsent (1703 – 1711) and John Pinsent (1706 – 1706). When this third Robert Pinsent “of Huxbeare” died, in 1707, aged only 28, his widow Elizabeth (née Voisey) also found herself with young children to care for. She married John Harris the following year and presumably they tried to keep the farm going for her young son Robert Pinsent who was “ye fourth of Huxbeare”. Sadly, he died in 1711. I don’t know what caused the catastrophic die-off that occurred within the family in the early 1700s but it did considerable damage in and around Hennock. It does not seem to have been restricted to this branch of the family.
The last Robert’s great-grandmother Urith had lived until 1692 and witnessed the start of the family’s trials and tribulations but not the final loss of the farm. After her death, the Church Wardens seemed to have had difficulty deciding who was nominally responsible for paying the parish rates for Huxbeare while Urith’s male descendants were underage. Eventually, they decided that the duty fell to “the occupiers”. The Pinsents connection to Huxbeare ended in 1711. They had held the property for well over 200 years.
Robert and Urith’s second son, Thomas Pinsent remains unaccounted for. Perhaps he did marry Ann Waters, as described in the Thomas Pynsent’s memorandum [see elsewhere]. However, if he did so, he was very young and I think that is unlikely.
Knighton, Kelly and Devonport
John Pinsent (1626 – 1663):
Second Son of Thomas and Julian Stidstone
Thomas and Julian Stidstone’s second son, John Pinsent (1626 – 1663) inherited Knighton, presumably the smaller of the family farms, from his father in 1646. He paid the parish rates for it until shortly before his own death, in 1663. Knighton is located near what was later to become the village of Chudleigh Knighton, which is at the south end of Hennock parish. John married Philippa Wilmeade and they had three sons that lived past infancy, Thomas Pinsent (1652 – 1711), John Pinsent (1659 – xxxx) and Robert Pinsent (1661 – 1729).
John left Knighton to his eldest son, Thomas, who was only eleven years old at the time. When he grew up, Thomas married Catherine Parker and he had a daughter Julian Pinsent (1677 – 1721) and three sons, John Pinsent (1680 – 1704), Thomas Pinsent (1682 – 1702) and Robert Pinsent (1684 – 1685) before his wife died in 1686. She was predeceased by her youngest son, so her husband, Thomas Pinsent, was left with two young sons and a farm to look after. He remarried. Thomas married Margaret Ball of Lustleigh in 1689. They had no children of their own – that I am aware of.
Thomas’s two remaining sons, John and Thomas Pinsent died in the early 1700s before they were old enough to marry. They may have been aflicted with the same sickness that finished off their “cousins” at Huxbeare. They died at much the same time. Thomas Pinsent “senior” died a few years later, in 1711. What happened to Knighton after his death is not immediately clear. The farm house seems to have been sold off but, as we shall see later, some or all of the land may have remained in the family under a different owner Thomas Pinsent of Pitt farm, who belongs to the HENNOCK branch of the family.
John and Philippa’s second son, John Pinsent (1659 – xxxx), is a loose end. I do not know what happened to him. In contrast, their third and youngest son, Robert Pinsent (1661 – 1729), is known to have done very well for himself. According to Cecil Torr (1910) in his book “Wreyland Documents”, he received a “halfendeale” (half-share) in some land in South Kelly as a legacy from his grandfather (Philippa Wilmeade’s father) Thomas Wilmeade. He was only sixteen years old when he received it, in 1677, and the bequest was probably predicated on his living to be “off age” so the first formal recognition of his ownership does not come until his marriage to Elizabeth Delve, in 1684. Robert paid the rates for South Kelly from that year on – at least until 1692, which is the last year of entry in the relevant ledger of Hennock’s “Churchwarden’s Accounts”.
South Kelly was in Wreyland Manor, most of which was in the parish of Bovey Tracey, and Robert is mentioned in the surviving Manor Court Rolls (Cecil Torr: 1910). He seems to have been foreman of the court jury in 1725. Cecil Torr (1910) shows that South Kelly was included in a marriage settlement between Robert’s son and sole heir, John Pinsent (1690 – 1737) and his bride to be, Margaret, daughter of Philip Luscombe in 1720. At the time, it comprised: “1 messuage, 3 cottages, 4 gardens, 1 orchard, 15 acres (arable) land, 5 acres meadow, 15 acres pasture and 50 acres of furze and heath”. The three cottages “and two herb gardens thereunto adjoining” referred to were said to be located near the “Great Bridge” at the south end of Bovey Tracey town. The settlement also included Robert’s cider pound and the implements of his trade as a “sope boyler”. Robert, for his part, agreed to transfer the trade to his son John, on the understanding that he and his wife (Elizabeth) should continue to occupy “the shopp, the shopp chamber and the entry chamber through the garden next adjoining to the high way leading from Bovey Tracey to Moretonhampstead.” Here we see the origins of the DEVONPORT branch of the Pinsent family. They started out as soap boilers and tallow chandlers and moved up from there.
Margaret (Luscombe) had two sons, John Pinsent (1723 – 1800) and Thomas Pinsent (1726 – 1757) before her husband died, in 1737. She was left with a relatively young family and she married Ambrose Rackett, of Crediton, the following year. Ambrose seems to have looked after the soap business at Kelly until Margaret’s son, John, came of age and took it over. This particular John Pinsent, or “Mr. John Pinsent” as he was later known, moved to Moretonhampstead where he built a very successful soap and candle-making business. He married Elizabeth Puddicombe and they, in turn, had two surviving sons also named John Pinsent (1745 – 1804) and Thomas Pinsent (1754 -1841). The repetition of names makes life confusing!
Mr. John Pinsent set his elder son up in business as a soap boiler in Plymouth; however, this particular enterprise failed and John “junior” was forced into bankruptcy in 1785. He moved his family back to Moretonhampstead where he, presumably, helped his father manage the main family business. John “junior” married Anne Heard in 1768 and they had six children, including two sons, who were baptized in the Presbyterian Chapel in Plymouth. However, neither of them married. It must have been a blow for the family when the elder son Thomas Heard Pinsent (1769 – 1794) died at the age of 24. His younger brother, John Pinsent (1773 – xxxx), is unaccounted for, but he had probably died by 1800 as there is no mention of him in his grandfather’s will. Otherwise, “Mr. John Pinsent” left small bequests for all of his living grandsons.
One of John Pinsent “junior’s” daughters is of particular interest: Elizabeth Pinsent (1777 – 1809) married Mr. Joseph Pinsent (1770 – 1835) in Moretonhampstead a matter of months before the patriarch of the family, “Mr. John Pinsent” died. Joseph comes from the HENNOCK branch of the family and his life is described elsewhere. Sadly, Elizabeth died after ten years; however she left a son, Joseph Burton Pinsent with a double dose of Pinsent genes!
In 1797, “Mr. John Pinsent” sold his soap boiling interests in South Kelly and purchased a twenty-one year lease on a “certain mine of black lead or some other substance” (actually specularite iron ore). He was getting old and was ready to retire. He was probably looking for a steady source of income. If so, he never derived much benefit from it. He died in 1800. His eldest son, John Pinsent (the erstwhile John “junior”), continued to make soap and candles in Moretonhampstead for a few years but he himself died in 1804 and, in the absence of any other family member willing (or able) to run the business, it was sold to one of Mr. John Pinsent “senior‘s” erstwhile apprentices. Local newspapers tell us that the business survived what could have been a very serious fire in 1803 after “a boy took a candle into a room where there was a quantity of wick and cotton yarn.” That could have ended very badly.
John and Margaret (née Luscombe’s) second son, Thomas Pinsent (1726 – 1757), (Mr. John’s younger brother) inherited a property at Leigh, in Hennock parish, that his father had bought for £175 in 1732. According to Cecil Torr (1910) it consisted of “1 messuage, 1 cottage, 2 gardens, 2 orchards, 7 acres (arable) land, 2 acres meadow, 1 acre pasture, 1 acre wood and 2 acres furze and wood”. Thomas married Mary Gildon of Kingsteighton in 1752 and it seems likely that he acquired some additional property through the marriage. “Gildons” in Kingsteignton was still in the Pinsent family’s hands when Mr. John Pinsent’s grandson, Thomas Pinsent (1782 – 1872) of “Greenhill” (in Kingsteignton) died in 1872.
Thomas and Mary (née Gildon) had no sons, but they had two daughters Mary Pinsent (1753 – 1772) and Elizabeth Pinsent (1754 – xxxx) who became coheirs of their father’s estate. They each received half of their father’s property at Leigh, and for a while, they split the income. This arrangement worked well until the elder of the two, Mary, arranged to marry a Robert Pinsent (1750 – 1786) in 1771. He belonged to a branch of the HENNOCK family that lived in Newton Abbot. They married in Tiverton, although I have no idea why. Neither family seems to have had any connections there.
Sadly, Mary died in Newton Abbot the following April. In those days, a woman’s property belonged to her husband after her marriage. This was not a problem while Mary was alive; however, it complicated matters for her sister Elizabeth when she died. “Wreyland Documents” show that the two branches of the Pinsent family solved the problem by having Robert sell Mary’s half interest in Leigh to her uncle Mr. John Pinsent for £165. At the same time, her sister Elizabeth sold her half-share to him for the same amount. It kept the property in the DEVONPORT family.
When John Pinsent “junior”, (Mr. John Pinsent, the soap-boiler’s eldest son) died without a son in 1804, one would have thought that the family business in Moretonhampstead and the patriarch (their father’s) considerable property elsewhere in the district would have passed to his younger brother Thomas (1754 – 1841) who was a tallow “chandler” and a soap merchant living in Newton Abbot. However, he was more of a salesman than a manufacturer and he had made the mistake of upsetting his father “Mr. John Pinsent” shortly before he died. Mr. John Pinsent “senior’s” will reflects this. Most of his wealth bypassed his son Thomas and went to his by then one remaining grandson Thomas (1782 – 1872).
Mr. John Pinsent’s offending son Thomas Pinsent had married Anne Ball in 1777 and settled in Kingsteignton, which is contiguous with Wolborough and Highweek, the two parishes that now constitute Newton Abbot. Thomas and Anne (née Ball) had the above named Thomas – who we shall meet later – and two daughters, Anna Thomasin Croat Pinsent (1777 – 1799) and Elizabeth Pinsent (1789 – xxxx). Anna Thomasin Croat Pinsent, married the Joseph Pinsent (1770 – 1835) from the HENNOCK family mentioned above in 1799, before her above-mentioned cousin, Elizabeth. Unfortunately, the marriage was extremely short lived as Anna died in London a few months after the wedding. Joseph took up with Elizabeth and they married the following year. The marriages show that the two branches of the family knew each other well.
It seems that after Thomas “senior’s” wife Anne (née Ball) died in 1794, he had an illegitimate daughter, Maria Pinsent (1797 – 1864) by a lady called Elizabeth Pridham. Thomas married Elizabeth in 1799 but his father, who was a devout Baptist, was not impressed. Shortly before he died, “Mr. John Pinsent” cut him out of his will in favour of his grandson. Mr. John seems to have wanted to ensure that his estate stayed with his younger son’s first family. As a result, Thomas and Elizabeth’s children got off to a bad start. Maria Pinsent, the unfortunate cause of the problem, married Roger Yeo while quite young and the two of them took off for Australia.
After Maria, Thomas Pinsent and Elizabeth Pridham had four perfectly legitimate sons; however, none of them stayed on in Devon. Perhaps they felt they were not welcome. Maria’s eldest brother, John Pinsent (1799 – 1870), followed in his father’s footsteps and became a tallow chandler. He married Mary Ann Todd and sold candles and soap on the Goswell Road in London for several years before moving to the United States. He settled in New York in 1832 and became a successful confectioner – a profession that was much more in tune with the time and his big-city location. John’s sticky treats were given an “honourable mention” by Henry James, the American novelist, in his autobiography (“A Small Boy and Others …”) written when he was in his seventies. John and his family are among the few in America that can easily be traced back to antecedents in England.
John’s brother, William Pinsent (1808 – xxxx), likely took to the sea. He seems to have married Margaret Sayle in Lancashire but I am not aware of any family. Their brother Charles Pinsent (1812 – 1863) became a cheese-monger in St. John’s Wood, in London. He married Mary Fullick in 1833 and they had a large family together before she died, in 1852. Two years later, Charles married Georgiana Caroline Henly and added another two daughters to his brood. Unfortunately, his cheese business failed and he was forced into bankruptcy in 1854. The financial pressures eventually became too much for him. He committed suicide in 1863.
The youngest of the brothers by the second marriage George Pinsent (1814 – 1894) also settled in London. He became a tailor in Lambeth Street, in Whitechapel – which was not the best part of town in those days; it was, after all, where the “Ripper” murders took place, in 1888. George was living there at the time. He married Elizabeth Leatt and they too proceeded to have a large family that included a son, George Henry Pinsent (1844 – 1915). He married his cousin Amelia Pinsent (1842 – 1901) (one of his Uncle Charles’s daughters) in 1874. As far as I can determine, they had no children of their own; however, they had a daughter, Eleanor Lee Pinsent (1872 – xxxx) who was, according to the 1881 Census, adopted. As far as I know, none of George Pinsent and Elizabeth’s other sons married or had children.
The survival rate for children in London was pitifully low during the first half of the 19th Century. The population was subjected to periodic bouts of cholera, typhoid and other infectious diseases that spread rapidly by means of the City’s contaminated water supply. The City restructured its drainage in the mid to late 1800s, and living conditions improved.
Charles and Mary (née Fullick) had ten children between 1833 and 1852 and, surprisingly, four sons survived. Charles Pinsent (1837 – 1862) joined the East India Company Army. He married Eliza Holmes in London in 1859 and they had a son, Charles George Pinsent (1862 – 1863) while out in India. Charles died in Poona, in Bombay Presidency, in October 1862 and his son died a few months later. India was not much healthier than London!
Charles “junior’s” brother, George Pinsent (1840 – 1875), also joined the East India Company. He married Mary Ann Louisa Payne in Bombay in 1865 and they managed to have a large family that included no less than five sons, George Augustus Pinsent (1866 – 1921), Charles Alfred Pinsent (1866 – 1914), Frederick Henry Pinsent (1868 – 1937), Arthur Edwin Pinsent (1871 – 1939) and Harold Edmund Pinsent (1872 – 1872). The two eldest were twins. Their father, George Pinsent, died at Malta while on board S. S. Crocodile in transit back to England, in 1875. Once again, this left a young widow with a large family. Mary Ann Louisa remarried and was surprisingly successful with her family. All but two of her seven children lived full lives.
One of George’s twin sons, Charles Alfred Pinsent, became a “cutter” in the Government Harness and Saddlery Factory at Cawnpaw (Kanpur; Uttar Pradesh). He spent his whole life in India but (as far as I know) never married. For some reason, he too, like his grandfather, took his own life in 1914. He left his estate (such as it was) to his brother George Augustus Pinsent. George was living in Bombay where he worked for the Eastern Telegraph Company. He does not appear to have married either. The twins’ younger brother, Frederick Henry Pinsent, joined the Indian Telegraph Service. He married Florence Maud Platel in 1893 but I know of no family. The two of them retired back to England in the 1920s and lived in London.
The fourth brother, Arthur Edwin Pinsent, was the “Dock Manager” for the Bombay Port Trust for many years before he too retired back to England, where he lived with his wife, Annie Louisa Brennan, in Hendon, outside London. Once again, there is no suggestion of a family. The fifth and youngest of the sons, Harold Edmund Pinsent, died as an infant. It is worth noting that one of the boys’ sisters Annie Mary Louisa Pinsent (1869 – 1951) became an “Army School Mistress”. She also remained unmarried and eventually retired home to England.
Charles and Mary’s (née Fullick) son, Alfred Pinsent (1848 – 1919) stayed on in London. He became a “bricklayer” and “plasterer” at a time when London was growing rapidly. He married Matilda Churched or Churchyard (there are conflicting records) in 1870. She was the daughter of a “policeman”. Unfortunately, Matilda died in 1888; which, once again, left a middle-aged man with a relatively young family. Alfred married a widow, Charlotte James, two years later. Alfred and Matilda had had four children, a son Alfred Charles Pinsent (1877 – 1948) and three daughters.
Alfred Charles followed his father into the construction business as a “carpenter”. He married Mabel Winifred Davis in Walthamstow (London) in 1902 and they, in their turn, had three sons Stanley Arthur Pinsent (1903 – 1985), Charles Alfred Pinsent (1905 – 1961) and Harold William Pinsent (1910 – 1967). There were also several daughters. The boys all started out in the building trade and might well have stayed in the construction business but for the Second World War, which intervened. Stanley Arthur joined the R.A.S.C. (Royal Army Service Corps) and rose to the rank of Captain. His brother, Charles, became a Regimental Quartermaster Sergeant in the East Surrey Regiment. He was wounded but returned safely home.
After the war, Stanley and his younger brother Harold set up a construction business “Pinsent, Bros. Ltd., Builders & Contractors, Beaconsfield Road, Tolworth, Surbiton” (Surrey) that was still going strong in the mid-1970s. After leaving the army, Charles joined the Police Force.
All three of Alfred Charles Pinsent’s sons married. Stanley Arthur Pinsent married Evelyn Hilda Lawrence in 1926 and had at least two sons. Charles Alfred Pinsent married Mary Bernie in 1935 and had a son and three daughters, and Harold William Pinsent married Mary Swain Robinson in 1945. They had at least one son and a daughter. There are likely many other descendants by now.
Returning to Thomas Pinsent (1754 – 1841) and his first family, by Anne (née Ball); they did very well out of the wealth generated by the family’s soap and tallow business and had a much easier life than their half-siblings. As we have seen, Thomas Pinsent’s eldest son, another, Thomas Pinsent (1782 – 1872) was the principal beneficiary named in his grandfather “Mr. John Pinsent’s” will and he inherited most of his, not inconsiderable, estate.
Thomas sold some of it and married Mary Savery who was the daughter of a prominent serge cloth manufacturer in 1805. The couple moved to Devonport where Thomas (doubtless with the help of his father-in-law) established the firm of “Pinsent & Co., Linen and Woolen Drapers of 43 Market Road, Devonport.” It prospered both during and after the Napoleonic wars. Thomas Pinsent ran the drapery by himself for several years but eventually passed it over to his youngest son, Richard Steele Pinsent (1820 – 1864) and returned to Kingsteignton to manage a large farm called “Greenhills”. Thomas was a wealthy baptist and an active member of Kingsteington Parish Council. He was also a Guardian of the Poor, at least until 1851, when ill health got the better of him. Thomas started to withdraw from farming, although as it turned out he had many more years to live. In 1854, he sold his prize cow “The Gay Lass” for 75 guineas at auction. Thomas died in Torquay in 1872 leaving a still profitable farm at “Greenhill” and also a considerable amount of land elsewhere in the Teign valley. However, by then his sons were already set up in their chosen professions and they had no need of the land. Over the next few years, much of it went under the hammer.
The DEVONPORT Pinsents were not alone in the Newton Abbot. As mentioned previously, the HENNOCK branch was also well entrenched in the neighbourhood. One of the above Thomas Pinsent’s sisters, Anna Thomasin Croat Pinsent (1777 – 1799) married Joseph Pinsent (1770 – 1835) in May 1799. Joseph was born in Newton Abbot. He was a “ship’s broker” who owned a small farm near Lettaford on Dartmoor but was living in London at the time of their marriage. Joseph took his bride up to London after the wedding and she died there the following December – whether in childbirth or by infection I am not sure. Her death made-way for Joseph to marry her cousin, Elizabeth Pinsent (see above). She became the second “Mrs. Joseph Pinsent.” The DEVONPORT and HENNOCK branches could hardly have been closer at this point.
Thomas and Mary’s (née Savery) first son, Thomas Pinsent (1807 – 1826) died young. His second, Savery Pinsent (1815 – 1886) trained as a lawyer and went out to South Africa in 1849. He practiced law in the British Colony of Natal and was elected Mayor of Durban in 1856. As far as I know, he never married. He returned home when his father died in 1872 and, in the absence of immediate heirs, dismantled what was left of the family’s estate. Savery, like his father and grandfather before him, was a committed Baptist and he was more than willing to argue theology with the local Vicar in scathing “Letters to the Editor” published in the local press. Savery railed against the “Romanization” of the English Church. He was a strong advocate of education and a noted philanthropist. He paid for an extension to be added to the British School in Newton Abbot, in 1880.
One of Savery’s sisters, Mary Savery Pinsent (1806 – 1884) married a Baptist minister, Reverend Thomas Horton. She lived in Plymouth and had a son Thomas Pinsent Horton who went to work in her father’s drapery, in Market Street, in Devonport. Thomas Pinsent Horton took over the management of the business when his uncle, Richard Steele Pinsent, died. He kept its name long after Richard’s death and “Pinsent’s Drapery” appears to have been a fixture in Devonport into the early 1900s.
Two of Mary’s sisters married members of Birmingham’s then thriving Baptist community. Elizabeth Savery Pinsent (1811 – 1888) married Thomas Gammon, a glass manufacturer, in Aston in 1840, and Sarah Pinsent (1817 – 1847) married Thomas Smith James, a solicitor in Harborne. Unfortunately, their marriage was short-lived. Sarah seems to have died not long after the wedding. Nevertheless, it was to be a turning point for the family. Sarah’s nephew Richard Alfred Pinsent moved to Birmingham to study law. He, and his brother Hume Chancellor Pinsent, were to build the Birmingham based law-firm of “Pinsent and Co.” which, in updated form, remains with us today.
Thomas Pinsent, the draper of Devonport, set his third son, John Ball Pinsent (1819 – 1901) up as a brewer in Newton Abbot and an owner of “tied” public houses. Brewing was a profitable business – as long as landlords behaved themselves. John Ball would occasionally find himself in Court on his employee’s behalf – appealing to the Magistrate’s better nature. This left Richard Steele Pinsent (1820 – 1864), Thomas’s youngest son free to take over the drapery. John Ball and Richard Steele both married and had children who have descendants that are alive today. We will look at each descent separately.
John Ball Pinsent (1819 – 1901)
John Ball Pinsent married Hannah Davie Swain in Dorset in 1841 and they moved into a house in Highweek parish, across the river from his father’s home at “Greenhill”. They had three surviving sons, Thomas Pinsent (1842 – 1889), William Swain Pinsent (1843 – 1920) and (to seriously complicate matters) another John Ball Pinsent (1844 – 1890). All three helped to run the brewery and to look after the family’s coal, and wine and spirit businesses in Newton Abbot. In those days, the Pinsent family was a major employer in Devonport and in Newton Abbot. It was a well-known local “brand” in the Teign Valley, west of Exeter. Like most small businesses, the firm had its share of accidents and incidents that were gleefully reported in the local press. For instance, we find that one of their brewery wagons over-turned in July 1872. Apparently, its horses were startled by “a couple of elephants belonging to Mrs. Edmonds’ Menagerie” as they entered town. Who can blame them?
The newspapers tell us that the family was frequently tied up court with both large and small court cases. If the Pinsents were not arguing about the poor quality of the barley they purchased or ranting about questionable payments demanded of them for the hire of grain sacks, they were before the magistrates charging their own employees with embezzlement and suing local miscreants for the theft of their coal or corn, or for failure to pay for the purchase of beer. On the coal side, twelve tons were mysteriously off-loaded from one of their barges as it made its way up the River Teign in 1880. The offence was referred to and was presumably resolved in the County Court. Still, twelve tons was a modest loss compared with the hundred tons or so that was swept into the Lemon River when it broke its banks and flooded the company’s coal depot in 1852. In other news, the potential for fire was always present, and the brewery seems to have survived several scares, including one in the malt house in December 1875. The family was well known and had some standing in the community.
Thomas Pinsent, the eldest of the three brothers, married Emma Anthony in 1875 but had no children. He predeceased his father John Ball Pinsent “senior” who was unquestionably the driving force behind the brewery. John Ball lived to the grand age of 82 years. When he eventually died, in 1901, his middle son, William Swain Pinsent took over the business. William married Harriet Eliza Cookson in 1868 and they had two sons John Douglas Pinsent (1872 – 1936) and William Henry Pinsent (1874 – 1949).
William Swain Pinsent inherited an impressive house, called “Minerva House” from his father. In time, he became a well-known businessman. He was a long-time member and eventual Chairman of Highweek parish council and a loud voice on its sanitation committee. Water quality was important for a brewer! His water was brought into the brewery from a nearby spring through a water-channel or leet. Most of the town of Newton Abbot is in Wolborough parish but a significant part is in Highweek parish, and William Swain upheld the interests of the Highweek portion on just about every joint committee formed in the 1880s. The parish councils were eventually amalgamated to form a single “Urban District Council”. William Swain served on the Grand Jury at the Devonshire Assizes in 1904.
William Swain’s principal claim to fame was his ability to breed and show prize dorking cocks and hens at local and national level shows. The arrival of the railway did a lot to enhance the quality of animals shown at County fairs and his were acknowledged to be among the best. He later moved on to breeding horses.
William Swain’s eldest, John Douglas Pinsent studied finance and became a banker. He married Mary Elizabeth Watts in 1906 and they had a son Leslie Grahame Pinsent (1910 – 1988) born in Exeter shortly before the family moved to Southsea, in Hampshire. Leslie Grahame was a garage proprietor there before and immediately after the Second World War. He married twice; firstly to Edna Kate May Stuttard in 1934, and secondly to Elsa Laura Nellthorp in 1948. I am not aware of any children from either marriage. William Swain’s second son, William Henry Pinsent (1874 – 1949) nominally worked in the brewery but seems to have had little interest in it. In his youth he was a highly regarded rugby player and a creditable singer and banjo player – if local newspaper descriptions of his actions on the field and his performances at local “Socials” are to be believed. Communities devised their own entertainments. There was no TV or Internet back then. William Henry married Minnie Gertrude Pearse in 1897 and they had two sons that survived through infancy, Donovan Henry Douglas Pinsent (1901 – 1980) and Gerald Swain Pinsent (1904 – 1993).
William Henry and Minnie Gertrude opened a boarding house in Teignmouth in 1909 but it failed in 1912 – apparently through his “ill-health” but (probably also) through his poor management. William Henry was dependent on his father’s good will and was a great disappointment to him as he felt obliged to pay off his debts at a time when the family’s brewery business was in trouble and he could ill afford to do so. The brewery had trouble adapting to the barrage of government restrictions, regulations and “buy-back” programmes that were brought in to reduce the number of licensed premises both during and after the First World War. In the absence of a credible successor, William Swain sold the brewery to “Heavitree Breweries Ltd.” – a far larger firm based in Exeter shortly before he died in 1920.
William Henry and Minnie Gertrude’s elder son, Donovan Henry Douglas Pinsent became a refrigeration engineer. He married no less than three times: to Vera Gweneth Salter in 1924, to Flora Helen Hales in 1937 and Gladys Parsons in 1978. He had two sons – by Vera. The elder, John Henry Pinsent (1925 – 1945) was a flight engineer in the Royal Air Force who, sadly, died on active service flying over Germany, in 1945. The younger, Gerald Swain Pinsent followed his immediate forebears into the liquor business. He became a wine and spirit merchant. He married Dorothy James in 1928 and had a daughter who is now married.
John Ball Pinsent “senior’s” youngest son, John Ball Pinsent “junior”, seems to have worked in the family business from an early age, although it is difficult to separate his activities from those of his father. It is hard to know which John Ball Pinsent signed a deal or testified in a court case. John Ball Pinsent “senior” must have hoped that his youngest son would help his brothers in the brewery after his death; however, in the event he predeceased his father.
John Ball “junior” did not have a happy life. Although he married twice, both of marriages ended tragically. He married Jane Coles in 1877 and they had a daughter. She was still a baby when Jane was killed in an accident in Newton Abbot, in 1879. The local papers tell us that she was driving her mother-in-law through the town in a light carriage when some boys in a grocery truck spooked her horse. It bolted and crashed against a wall. Mrs. Pinsent “junior” hung on for a few days and then died. Mrs. Pinsent “senior” was injured but survived. John Ball married again the following year and had two sons, Robert Maye Pinsent (1881 – 1944) and Charles Pinsent (1883 – 1937) by his second wife, Jane Maye. Unfortunately, Jane suffered from depression and committed suicide by poison in 1884. As the newspaper explained it, she was needlessly worried about her finances. John Ball Pinsent “junior” died a few years later, in 1890, leaving a young family who seem to have been looked after by relatives.
His eldest son, Robert Maye Pinsent went to live with his mother’s family. He was athletic and like his cousin, William Henry Pinsent, a well-known local sportsman in his youth. He played cricket and rugby in Totnes before the Boer War and left to join the South African Constabulary, in 1901. He returned to Newton Abbot and married Mildred Adams in 1908. They had no children that I know of. Robert Maye Pinsent tried his hand as a wholesaler fruit and vegetable merchant – but without success. He was forced to file for bankruptcy in 1912. When the First World War broke out two years later, Robert rejoined the armed forces and served with the Military Mounted Police.
Robert’s brother, Charles Pinsent worked in the family brewery in Newton Abbot until it was taken over by Heavitree Breweries. He then immigrated to Canada where he became a Post Office employee in Edmonton, Alberta. Charles married Henrietta Perraton in 1905 and they had a son Gerald Arnot Pinsent (1917 – 2013) who was, until relatively recently, a dental surgeon in North Vancouver, British Columbia.
Richard Steele Pinsent (1820 – 1864)
After building up his drapery business in Devonport in the early years of the nineteenth century, Thomas Pinsent left it in the hands of his youngest son, Richard Steele Pinsent and retired to farm at “Greenhill” in Kingsteignton. Richard had been brought up in the business and he seems to have managed it very successfully until his own death, in 1864. The store, which was based in Market Street in Devonport routinely advertised its wares in the local papers and it was well known to the residents of Devonport and Plymouth.
It was an obvious target for fraud and theft and an enterprising boy with a stolen cheque for £40 was able to cash it there in 1855. He forged a signature and might have got away with it but for a sharp-eyed bank manager who doubted the writing. Then there was the dashing Office of Marines (Captain Cocks) who told his mistress to go wild and set up an apartment at his expense. This was in 1858. Needless to say, she did so and he refused to pay. The magistrates were not amused!
When Richard Steele died, the management of the store seems to have passed to his nephew, Thomas Pinsent Horton, the son of Richard’s sister Mary Savery Pinsent and her husband, Rev. Thomas Horton. Thomas kept the firm going under its old name “Pinsent and Co. Drapers and Linen Merchants” and it remained a feature of the local community into the early 1900s.
Richard Steele Pinsent married Catherine Agnes Ross, in 1850. She was a direct lineal descendant of John Hume, the Scottish philosopher David Hume’s brother. How they met, I have no idea! Richard Steele and Catherine Agnes had three sons, Adolphus Ross Pinsent (1851 – 1929), (named after Catherine’s father, Dr. Adolphus McDowall Ross) Richard Alfred Pinsent (1852 – 1948) and Hume Chancellor Pinsent (1857 – 1920). When Richard Steele died, Catherine Agnes was left to look after a young family. She gave them a good education and they did very well for themselves. We will follow the descent of each separately.
Her eldest son, Adolphus, or “Ross Pinsent” as he was commonly known became a “River Plate” merchant at a time when Britain still had considerable influence in South America. Later, when back in England, he became a businessman and company director promoting firms with both British and South American interests. In the early 1900s, he was a director of the “Mogyana Railway Company”, in Brazil and also of “James Hinks and Company” (a manufacturer of oil lamps).
Adolphus Ross married Alice Mary Nuttall in Montevideo in Uruguay, in 1877, and had three sons Sidney Hume Pinsent (1879 -1969), Cecil Ross Pinsent (1884 – 1963) and Gerald Hume Saverie Pinsent (1888 – 1976) there before returning to England. After the death of his wife in 1901, Adolphus Ross married Ethel Mary Philomena Whitehead in London and they had a son, Basil Hume Pinsent (1911 – 2000).
Ross’s eldest son, Sidney Hume Pinsent (1879 – 1969) trained as a “mechanical engineer”. He lived in South America and, as a “Resident Brit” looked after some of his father’s commercial interests there. However, he kept up his ties with England. Sidney Hume married Beatrice Elena Le Bas in London in 1912 and they had four sons in Argentina: Harold Ross Pinsent (1913 – 1988), Paul Desmond Pinsent (1915 – 1997), Roger Philip Pinsent (1916 – 1997) and Neville James Quintus Pinsent (1921 – 2013). They were educated in England before the Second World War and served in the armed forces when the time came. Taken in order: Harold Ross Pinsent was a “Flight Lieutenant” in the Royal Air force Volunteer Reserve. He married Cynthia Mary Nelson Bobbett in the United States, in 1941. They had three children, two sons and a daughter who were born in Buenos Aires after the war. They were educated in England and are now, in their turn, married with children of their own.
Sidney Hume Pinsent’s second son, Paul Desmond Pinsent joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve and served as a “Lieutenant (Engineer)” on County Class cruisers. He married Constance Kathleen Hamilton Heneghan in 1941 and they had four daughters who are most likely still alive today. Sidney Hume’s third son, Roger Philip Pinsent, opted for the army and was nominally a “Lieutenant” in the “Gloucestershire Regiment”. However, he may have worked for the “Special Operations Executive (SOE)” in Spain. There is a file on him in the Public Records Office, in Kew – although I have not seen it! He was fluent in Spanish and he joined the “Civil Service” after the war. Roger was “Her Majesty’s Consul” in Tangier and then Peru before serving as “Ambassador” in Nicaragua in the mid-1960s, and as “Consul General” in Sao Paulo, Brazil in the 1970s. Roger Philip Pinsent married Suzanne Smalley in 1941 and had one son and two daughters all of whom are most likely still alive.
Sidney Hume’s fourth son, Neville James Quintus Pinsent, also studied to be as “engineer” and joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve. Early on in the war, he seems to have served as a “Lieutenant” on specially equipped merchant ships in the Mediterranean but he was later posted to the aircraft carrier “H.M.S. Colossus” where he seems to have become a “night-fighter controller”. Neville James Quintus married Rosemary Chiswell in Buenos Aires in 1949 and they had a son and two daughters who still live in Argentina. The marriage may have failed as Neville James Quintus Pinsent seems to have married Maria Luisa Paez in 1972. They had no children, at least that I am aware of.
Adolphus Ross’s second son, Cecil Ross Pinsent (1884 – 1963) was an “architect” by profession and a noted authority on Italian garden design. He was a close friend of the American Art Historian Bernard Berenson, and he was recruited to be one of Britain’s “Monuments Men” during the Second World War. He did what he could to assess the damage done (by both sides) to Italy’s Classical Heritage as the allies fought their way up the spine of Italy. His field reports are available on-line. Cecil Ross never married.
His younger brother, Gerald Hume Saverie Pinsent (1888 – 1976) went to King’s School Canterbury and then on up to Cambridge University. While he was there in 1909, Gerald Hume and his sister Frances Maude Pinsent were caught in a blizzard on the Matterhorn. They were fortunate and lived to tell the tale. Gerald Hume passed out first in the “Civil Service” entrance exam in 1911 and served as the “Prime Minister’s Personal Secretary” before resigning to accept a commission in the “Royal Regiment of Artillery” at the outbreak of the First World War. When the hostilities were over, Gerald Hume Saverie returned to the Civil Service and eventually rose to a senior position in the Treasury.
Gerald Hume served in the “British Embassy” in Berlin in 1935 and watched the rise of Nazi Germany with considerable alarm. In 1940, he was part of the British delegation sent out to Washington to work out the terms of “Lend Lease”. After the war, he had the unenviable job of trying to sort out the financial mess. He was appointed “Comptroller-General of the National Debt Office” in 1946 but resigned, for reasons of health, in 1951. He was made a “Companion of the Order St. Michael and St. George (CMG)”, and a “Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB)” for his considerable efforts. Gerald Hume Saverie Pinsent married three times and had two daughters by his first wife, Katherine Kentisbeare Radford, whom he married in 1915. Gerald married his second, Margot Von Bonin, a German, in 1939; however, she died in 1950. He married his third wife, Luba Schaposchnikoff, in 1971.
Adophus Ross’s only son from his second marriage, Basil Hume Pinsent was born and educated in England. He was a Captain, in the “Royal Army Service Corps” during the Second World War and a solicitor in the firm of “Warren Murton and Co.”, in Harley Street, London in the 1950s. He married Patricia Arbery Mary Atteridge, in Tunbridge Wells in 1942 and they had a son and two daughters to extend the family line.
Richard Steele’s two younger sons Richard Alfred Pinsent and Hume Chancellor Pinsent were both born in Devonport but they moved to Birmingham where, presumably on the advice of their Uncle, Thomas Smith James (their late aunt Sarah’s husband), they entered the legal profession. They trained and articled in Birmingham and made their reputations as solicitors as the City grew in commercial importance in the 1880s and 1890s.
Richard Alfred started out as a junior partner in the firm of “Barlow, Smith and Pinsent, Solicitors”, (later “Pinsent and Co.”, and now “Pinsent Masons”) in 1877. His brother, Hume Chancellor, became a partner in “Pinsent and Co.” ten years later. The firm specialized in business and commercial law but, from time to time, probated wills and supported barristers in the law courts. By the early 1900s, Richard Alfred was well regarded at the national level. He was elected “President of the Law Society” in 1918 and he oversaw the introduction of women into the English legal profession. He was chair of its disciplinary committee for many years and was honoured with a baronetcy in 1938.
Sir Richard (as he became) married Laura Proctor Ryland in 1878. She came from a Midland family that was well known for its philanthropy and she had relations who were local landowners, industrialists, merchants and lawyers. They had no less than five sons: Roy Pinsent (1883 – 1978), Clive Pinsent (1886 – 1948), John Ryland Pinsent (1888 – 1957), Laurence Alfred Pinsent (1894 – 1915) and Philip Ryland Pinsent (1897 – 1916). These young men belonged to the generation of Britons who fought and, in too many cases died, in the First World War. Sir Richard’s fourth son, Laurence Alfred was killed while serving with the “North Staffordshire Regiment” at Gallipoli and his youngest, Philip Ryland, was an eighteen year-old “Flying Officer” in the Royal Flying Corps, when he died of his wounds in France. The loss of his two youngest sons affected Sir Richard deeply, and he contributed a considerable amount of money, land and influence to the building of memorials to lawyers and other legal staff lost during the war.
Sir Richard’s eldest son, Roy Pinsent, served with the “Royal Engineers” in Egypt and Palestine during the First World War and later became a solicitor and partner in “Pinsent and Co”. During the Second World War, he was an officer in the “Home Guard” (a.k.a. “Dad’s Army”) and chaired the “Midland Region Price Regulation Committee”, which had the thankless task of ensuring there was no price fixing occurred, and that basic goods were freely available and not hoarded.
After the war, Roy became an active member of the “Moral Rearmament” movement that flourished in the 1950s. Sir Roy (as he became when his father died in 1948) married twice. He married Marion Jordan Lloyd in 1913 but she died in a Switzerland the following year. She went there to try and recover her health but was unable to do so. Roy married Mary Tirzah Walls, in 1918. They had three children, two sons and a daughter. The eldest son, Christopher Roy Pinsent (1922 – 2015) or Sir Christopher (as he became on the death of his father, in 1978) was an artist and a lecturer at Camberwell School of Art, in London. He married Susan Mary Scorer in 1951, and they had children including Sir Thomas Benjamin Roy Pinsent who is still alive. He is mentioned because his name is off public record. He came into the baronetcy on the death of his father in 2015. Sir Christopher’s younger brother, Michael Roy Pinsent (1927 – 2019) seems to have served in the army before entering the legal profession.
Sir Richard Pinsent’s second son, Clive Pinsent, was a career officer in the Royal Navy. He was serving on “H.M.S. Berwick” (a relatively old armoured cruiser) at the start of the First World War but moved around as he rose through the ranks. He was “Acting Commander” of “H.M.S Euryalus”, (a cruiser) belonging to the “East Indies Squadron” when it ended. He spent much of the war protecting merchant ships in the Red and Arabian Seas. After the war, Commander Clive Pinsent retired from the Navy. He married Kathleen Jane Macpherson in 1921 and helped to manage her family’s country estate at “Edinglassie”, near Huntley, in Aberdeenshire. Their children were born in Scotland and the family split its time between “Edinglassie” and a house near Stevenage in Hertfordshire until 1949, when Kathleen sold “Edinglassie” (along with its grouse moor and fishing rights) after the death of her husband.
Commander Clive Pinsent and Kathleen Jane had three sons. Their eldest, Andrew Clive Macpherson Pinsent (1922 – 1982) served in the Royal Navy until he was invalided out after being severely injured in a diving accident. Andrew married Gloria Poppy Marie Tollemache, in 1945, and had two sons and a daughter who continue their line. Their second son, James Macpherson Pinsent (1925 – 1983) also served in the Royal Navy. However, he retired with the rank of “Lieutenant Commander” in 1954 and joined a financial firm in the City of London as an analyst. He was a Member of the “London Stock Exchange”. James Macpherson married Daphne Miranda Harkness in 1956 and they had a son and a daughter. Clive’s youngest son, Ewen Macpherson Pinsent (1930 – 2020) was also in the Royal Navy for a while. He served in submarines but left to take “Holy Orders”. Rev. Ewan Macpherson married Jean Grizel McMicking in 1962 and they have one surviving son and two daughters who are all now married. His son (breaking protocol on grounds of general knowledge) is Sir Matthew Clive Pinsent (1970 – xxxx) the well-known British oarsman who, with Steven Redgrave and others, won four Olympic and numerous other medals before retiring to become a television celebrity and sports commentator. In 2005, he was knighted for his services to rowing. Sir Matthew Pinsent, as he now is, is married and has a family of his own.
Sir Richard Pinsent’s third son, John Ryland was another career officer. He served with the “Royal Engineers” during the First World War and transferred to the “Royal Corps of Signals” when it was formed, in 1920. He retired as a “Major” in 1924 and, for a while, taught at “Winchester College School”. While there, he developed an interest in civic politics and he was elected to Winchester City Council in 1934. He was “Mayor of Winchester” in 1937. At the outbreak of the Second World War, John Ryland re-joined the army in an administrative capacity and helped develop its procedure for selecting Staff Officers. He retired with the rank of “Colonel”. In 1950, he was appointed Chairman of the “Civil Service Selection Board” and was instrumental in improving its selection process. He realized that diplomates had to be intelligent, knowledgeable – and, importantly, able to think on their feet! John Ryland Pinsent married Kathleen May Boyce, in 1915 and they had two sons, who have married and have children that are alive today.
Looking back a generation, Hume Chancellor Pinsent, Sir Richard Alfred’s brother, married Ellen Frances Parker in 1888. They had two sons; however they lost them both during the First World War. The eldest, David Hume Pinsent (1891 – 1918), was a gifted mathematician who attended Cambridge University and was a friend of the Austrian philosopher, Wittgenstein. David was not considered fit enough for active service so he worked on aeronautical problems at the “Royal Aircraft Factory” at Farnborough, in Hampshire, instead. Unfortunately, he was killed while flying as a civilian observer in a plane that broke up and crashed on a test flight in 1918. His brother, Richard Parker Pinsent (1894 – 1915) was a young (twenty-one years old) “Lieutenant” in the “Royal Warwickshire Regiment” who died on active service in France, in 1915.
Ellen Frances (née Parker), the boys’ mother, had been a novelist before the war. She came from a small village in Lincolnshire and wrote books about country life and inter-personal relationships (Jenny’s Case (1892), Job Hildred (1897) etc.). Her writing reflected an enduring interest in the welfare of the mentally handicapped. She lobbied for social reform and was the first woman elected to “Birmingham City Council” in 1911. Ellen Frances recognized that the mentally challenged were covered by a hodgepodge of inappropriate legislation that was both counterproductive to their welfare and costly to society at large. Like many in her generation, she worried about the hereditary nature of their disability. Many of her latter views would be challenged today. However, she argued for the “Mental Deficiency Act (1913)” and the “Mental Treatment Act (1930)” from the best of motives. In 1931, she was appointed “Senior Commissioner of the Board of Control” – an agency set up to implementation of the “Mental Treatment Act”.
In 1924, Ellen Frances Pinsent (née Parker) joined with Sir Horace and Lady Darwin in funding “The Pinsent – Darwin Studentship” at Cambridge University. She did so in memory of her lost sons. Ellen was made a Dame of the British Empire (equivalent to a knighthood) in 1937. There has been very little said about the Pinsent women-folk in this discussion. However, at this point it is worth noting that Dame Ellen Frances Pinsent’s daughter, Hester Agnes Pinsent (1899 – 1966) carried on her mother’s work on mental health. Hester married the distinguished physicist, Lord Adrian (Edgar Douglas Adrian), who was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1932. He shared the honour with Sir Charles Sherrington for their joint work on synapses and the effects of electricity in the brain.
The DEVONPORT branch is still going strong. Its race has still to be run! If you are looking for more, I suggest you go to the individual biographies.
Back: Pinsent Branch Summaries