Vital Statistics
Charles Pinsent: 1837 – 1862 GRO0122 (East India Company Army Sapper & Miner, India)
Eliza Holmes: xxxx – xxxx
Married: 1859: London
Children by Eliza Holmes:
Mary Eliza Pinsent: 1860 – xxxx (Married John Thomas Calvert, 1879, Poona, India)
Charles George Pinsent: 1862 – 1863
Family Branch: Devonport
PinsentID: GRO0122
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Charles Pinsent was the eldest son of a “cheese-monger,” Charles Pinsent, by his first wife, Mary (née Fullick). He was born in the Strand in the City of Westminster, in 1837. He trained to be a “clerk” but, perhaps seeing no future selling cheese – particularly as he had witnessed his father going through bankruptcy proceedings in the early 1850s, he enlisted in the “East India Company Army.” He signed on with the Engineers as 1st Corporal in the “Sappers and Miners” division (troops that blew things up) for a period of twelve years (IOR Reference L/MIL/12/116) in February 1859. His younger brother, George Pinsent signed on a few months later, so it was presumably a joint decision.
Charles married Eliza Holmes, the daughter of another “cheese-monger”, in St. Marylebone Parish in London in July 1859. They were sent out to India shortly afterwards and arrived in Bombay on the “S. S. Monteagle” in April 1860 (IOR Reference L/MIL/12/116).
It was a sensitive time for the East India Army. It had had to face down a serious rebellion of its “Sepoys” (Indian soldiers) in 1857. The “Indian Mutiny”, as it was called in England (or “First War of Independence” as they termed it) was stamped out in June 1858. When the dust had settled, the British Government took the opportunity to nationalize the “East India Company’s” possessions in India and take over its army. Charles was based at Poona (Pune), southeast of Bombay (Mumbai), on the northwest coast of India. While there, he transferred to “General Service,” sometime in 1861. By 1862, Charles was formally a member of “Her Majesty’s Bombay Sappers & Miners”.
Charles and Eliza had two children. The first, a daughter named Mary Eliza Pinsent (a.k.a. Eliza Mary Pinsent) was born in Poona in 1860. She grew up in India and married John Thomas Calvert, in Bombay in 1879. The second was a son, Charles George Pinsent who was born in September 1862. Charles died a month later, and his son had succumbed within a year. Clearly, India was not a particularly healthy place to be. Charles’s widow, Eliza Mary Pinsent married a Railway Engineer, John McFarlane, in January 1864.
Family Tree
GRANDPARENTS
Grandfather: Thomas Pinsent: 1754 – 1841
Grandmother: Elizabeth Pridham: 1763 – 1821
PARENTS
Father: Charles Pinsent: 1812 – 1863
Mother: Mary Fullick: 1812 – 1852
FATHER’S SIBLINGS (AUNTS, UNCLES)
Anna Thomasin Crout Pinsent: 1777 – 1799
Thomas Pinsent: 1779 – 1779
Thomas Pinsent: 1782 – 1872
Elizabeth Pinsent: 1789 – xxxx
Maria Pinsent: 1797 – 1864
John Pinsent: 1799 – 1870
William Pinsent: 1808 – xxxx
Charles Pinsent: 1812 – 1863
George Pinsent: 1814 – 1894
MALE SIBLINGS (BROTHERS)
Thomas Pinsent: 1836 – 1838
Charles Pinsent: 1837 – 1862
George Pinsent: 1840 – 1875
Alfred Pinsent: 1848 – 1919
Henry James Pinsent: 1850 – 1853
Frederick Pinsent: 1852 – 1929
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