Vital Statistics
Beatrice Mary Homfray Pinsent: 1883 – 1965 GRO0091 (English Language Teacher, Buenos Aires, Argentina)
Family Branch: Hennock
PinsentID: GRO0091
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Beatrice Mary Homfray was the youngest daughter of Robert John Pinsent, a Justice of the Supreme Court of Newfoundland, by his second wife, Emily Hetty Sabine Homfray. She was born at her mother’s family home in Bintry, in Norfolk in 1883 – presumably while her parents were back on one of their periodic visits to England. She was born into an extended family; she had five half-siblings: (Lucretia Maude, Louisa Catherine, Robert Hedley, Charles Augustus and Alfred Newman) from her father’s first marriage and a sister (Mabel Louisa Homfray) and two brothers (Robert John Ferrier Homfray and Francis Wingfield Homfray) from his second. She was later to have a younger brother (Guy Homfray Pinsent) who arrived in 1889. Sadly, Louisa Catherine, Robert Hedley and Robert John Ferrier all died without having had children.
The adjacent photograph of Sir Robert John Pinsent was probably, but not definitively, taken with Beatrice, or “Trixie” as she was known. She would have been about the right age when the photograph was taken.
Robert John Pinsent’s life is described elsewhere. He was an active member of the Supreme Court in Newfoundland and was notably busy in the 1880s dealing with the fall-out from a collapsed railway construction contract, and in establishing the rights of Newfoundland and French fishermen along the so-called “French Shore”. He felt that the French were only entitled to catch and process cod – and, what ever they said, they had no right to interfere with Newfoundlanders efforts to catch, process and can lobsters. He published an article entitled “French Fishery Claims in Newfoundland” (Nineteenth Century: Vol. 158, April 1890) in 1890. Robert made several visits to England and, in April 1885, he gave a talk to the “Royal Colonial Institute” entitled “Newfoundland, our Oldest Colony” (Colonies and India: Friday 17th April 1885.) He was a well-known and well-respected advocate for the Colony and Queen Victoria gave him the honour of a knighthood in 1890.
Sadly, Sir Robert died on a trip back to England in 1893. His death created a serious problem for Emily (or “Lady Pinsent” as she then was) as nearly all of the family’s assets in Newfoundland went to the children of his first marriage – most notably Charles Augustus Maxwell Pinsent. She was left with two teenage sons (Robert (19) and Frank (18)) in Newfoundland, a grown up daughter (Mabel (20)) and two young children, Beatrice (10) and Guy (4). Lady Pinsent stayed on in England and found employment first as “House Matron” at Harrow School and then as the “Matron” at Denstone School in Staffordshire.
Lady Pinsent never returned to Newfoundland; however, she clearly missed the place, particularly (I suspect) Salmonier and her fishing excursions to “Pinsent Falls” on the river there. It was one of the premier salmon fishing spots in Newfoundland. As an aside, when Field Marshal Earl Haig made a post-war visit to the Colony in 1924 to thank the “Royal Newfoundland Regiment” for its contribution and losses (which had been severe), the Colonial Government arranged for him to spend a few days fishing there. Needless to say: “FIELD MARSHAL LANDS HEAVIEST FISH OF THE SEASON: We have just received a message from Mr. J. Hannon, operator at Holyrood to the effect that Field-Marshal Earl Haig and party were at Pinsent Falls, and were already thoroughly enjoying themselves and having good luck. Last night Earl Haig landed five salmon, one of which was the largest fish caught at Salmonier for the season” (Evening Telegram: 5th July 1924). Okay, if you say so …
Lady Pinsent wrote two full articles for “The Field” Magazine on fly-fishing in Newfoundland and a shorter item (reprinted in an unspecified Quebec Newspaper) describing the time her nine-year old daughter Beatrice (“Trixie”) landed two small (well, slightly under three pounds each) salmon with a single cast of a trout rod. Trixie’s half-brother, Charles Augustus Maxwell – who was considerably older than she was – also made note of it in a contemporary item in the St. John’s press (Evening Telegram: 25th June 1892).
Trixie’s life changed dramatically after her father died. She and her brother Guy were sent to the “Blue Coat School” in Hertford. This was a charitable foundation that had originally been based at “Christ’s Hospital” in London but had moved out to Hertford in the 1700s. I am not aware that either of them ever returned to Newfoundland.
Lady Pinsent found it difficult to bring up her children on her own. She wrote to her stepdaughter Lucretia Maude (the Lady Abbess in Rome – see elsewhere) in November 1899 saying: “Can you realize that she (Trixie) will be 17 in April! She has the way to make people like her & is a great favourite here & all from the headmaster to the maids look forward to her coming. The former always gives her £10 for a tip and when she remonstrated, he said he always should while she went to school. The truth is my heart is bound up in the child & my greatest sorrow is that I cannot see my way to giving her the 5 years medical training necessary for her to practice in India – if she wished to combine missionary work with it, I could get her a substantial studentship from the S.P.C.K. but she has no call that way – at least not at present.” She wrote again the following October, saying “Trix. is going in for the Senior Cambridge Exam at Christmas and at Easter she will be 18 and leave school. She has given up, for the present at least, the idea of nursing and will teach, so I am looking out for something for her”.
I do not have a definitive photograph of Trixie; however, Lady Pinsent went on to say: “she is very tall and nice looking. I don’t mean pretty and looks very sweet and womanly with her hair up. She is too a dear obedient child. But she mostly gets her own way with me, but not always”. Emily had hoped to get out to Rome to see Lucretia but it was not to be: “… perhaps some day we may manage it. Just now I have to provide a complete outfit for Trixie for Easter when she leaves off her school clothes”. It was not easy for her and time was marching on. In December 1901, Lady Pinsent wrote: “Trixie’s exam in over but we do not know the result till March. If she has passed I hope by the aid of an Exhibition from her School to send her to a training college for a year. Her future gives me a good deal of anxiety just now.”
Lady Pinsent was bored stiff at Denstone and had plenty of time to write and keep up with friends, both in England and in Newfoundland. Among others, she corresponded with Judge W. D. Prowse, a friend of the family – and a great admirer of Sir Robert it would seem from his frequent references to him in the press. Judge Prowse arranged for the following to appear in a local St. John’s paper:“Mr. Frank Pinsent: The numerous friends and admirers of the late Sir Robert and Lady Pinsent, will be very pleased to learn that their son, Mr. Frank Pinsent, who used to be in the Surveyor General’s Office, has passed a most creditable examination in London, and is now entitled to become a member of the Council of Surveyors for Great Britain. It was a very stiff examination—like all those held in London —and several members, five and ten years seniors to Frank, were plucked. Miss Trixie Pinsent has also passed with great credit the Senior Local Cambridge Examination, and is now studying for higher honours. D.W.P.” (Evening Telegram: 17th June 1901); she had passed!
Frank (Francis Wingfield Homfray Pinsent) had trained to be a surveyor in St. John’s and moved to London, to be nearer his mother and siblings in 1899. Lady Pinsent left Denstone and moved into a flat at #13 Stanley Crescent in Kensington. She lived there for several years; however, when Francis (“Frank”) joined the Civil Service as “District Valuer” she moved down to Devon to be with him. Trixie had, by then, become a “masseuse” who was living in the flat in Kensington when the census takers came calling in 1911.
Trixie served at the “Queen Caroline (Alexandra (?)) Military Hospital” during the “First World War” (British Army WWI Service Records) and her service was acknowledged when “The Chairman of the Joint War Committee of the British Red Cross Society and Order of St. John of Jerusalem in England (has) brought the following names to the notice of the Secretary of State for War for services in connection with the establishment, organization and maintenance of hospitals: … list includes … Miss. B. M. H. Pinsent, Queen’s Canadian Military Hospital, Beachborough Park, Shorncliffe” (Southeastern Gazette: Tuesday 20th August 1918). Soldiers wounded in France and Belgium were sent to Shorncliffe, assessed before being shipped to smaller hospitals throughout the country.
Trixie’s younger brother Guy Homfray Pinsent had worked in a bank in Buenos Aires, in Argentina, before the war and he returned for a visit in 1919. Trixie went with him and, for some reason, decided to stay on. She became a “clerk” (possibly working for a British owned Railway Company (?)) in Buenos Aires, in 1928.
Interestingly, her time there overlapped with that of at least two other branches of the Pinsent family. How well they knew each other – if at all – I don’t know. Certainly, there was a surprising degree of interaction within the Pinsent family in England at that time. Lady Pinsent made the most of her erstwhile husband’s English friends and his and her family, and other connections. It is probably no coincidence that Adolphus Ross Pinsent (from the DEVONPORT branch) was a director of the bank that Guy worked for before the war! “Ross” Pinsent also had railway company connections, so he may have helped Trixie out as well.
Incoming Passenger Lists show that Beatrice Homfray Pinsent returned to see her brothers in England in 1928 and 1933 and may have been back other times as well. She visited Francis and his wife, Janet, in Horrabridge. On the second of her visits, she also went out to Italy to see her half-sister, Maude (the Lady Abbess). She returned from Genoa on the Dutch ship “Johan Van Oldenbarevelt” which docked in Southampton on 17th December 1933. Trixie wrote to her brothers Guy and Frank from that boat (or it may have been the one she took back to Argentina) and later, in June 1934, wrote to Frank to inquire if her letters had been received. She rather suspected they might have been thrown overboard and the postage pocked by a steward!
Trixie was sharing a flat in Buenos Aires with two or three other women at the time, and she mentioned that one of them would be leaving shortly as she was getting married. However, she thought that her friend Anne (presumably) Stehrenberger) would be back fairly soon, and she hoped that she would take one of the rooms in the flat.
Janet (née Cowtan), Frank’s wife died in February 1938 and he went out to Buenos Aires to get over the shock and see Trixie. It must have been a short visit as he arrived back in Southampton on the “Royal Mail Steamship Lines” vessel “Asturias” on 25th April 1938. Frank met Anne Marie Stehrenberger while he was there. She was a Swiss national who worked at the “Swiss Legation.” To what extent Trixie encouraged Frank’s subsequent marriage to Anne, I do not know; however, Trixie returned to England to see her brother in July 1938 and Anne Marie came over that August (U.K. Incoming Passenger Lists: Ancestry.com). She came down to Devon for a visit, and married Frank in Yelverton, in August 1939. Two years later they had a daughter – who is still living. Trixie returned to Buenos Aries, where she taught English.
Juan Peron took over in Argentina after the war and life must have changed for the English community. However, Trixie stayed on in Argentina and, in later years at least, gave English lessons. She was eighty-two years of age in 1965 when she died there. Her death was registered at the British Consular Office.
Family Tree
Grandparents
Grandfather: Robert John Pinsent: 1798 – 1876
Grandmother: Louisa Broom Williams: 1808 – 1882
Parents
Father: Robert John Pinsent: 1834 – 1893
Mother: Emily Hetty Sabine Homfray: 1845 – 1922
Father’s Siblings (Aunts, Uncles)
Mary Speare Pinsent: 1833 – 1833
Robert John Pinsent: 1834 – 1893 ✔️
Thomas Williams Pinsent: 1837 – 1890
Charles Speare Pinsent: 1838 – 1914
Louisa Williams Pinsent: 1841 – 1921
Mary Elizabeth Pinsent: 1844 – xxxx
William Burton Pinsent: 1846 – 1846
Male Siblings (Brothers, Half-brothers)
John Cooke Pinsent: 1861 – 1861
Robert Hedley Vicars Pinsent: 1862 – 1888
William Satterly Splatt Pinsent: 1864 – 1865
Charles Augustus Maxwell Pinsent: 1866 – 1910
Arthur Newman Pinsent: 1867 – 1946
Robert John Ferrier Homfray Pinsent: 1874 – 1899
Francis Wingfield Homfray Pinsent: 1875 – 1948
Guy Homfray Pinsent: 1889 – 1972
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