Vital Statistics
Henry Pinsent: 1769 – 1854 GRO0413 India (Carpenter, Undertaker and Building Contractor, London, Middlesex)
Joanna Wogan: 1772 – 1848
Married: 1800: London, Middlesex
Children by Joanna Wogan:
Mary Ann Pinsent: 1802 – xxxx
Henrietta Pinsent: 1803 – 1806
Eliza Pinsent: 1805 – 1839 (“Married” William John Steedman, London, Middlesex, 1836)
Henrietta Pinsent: 1806 – xxxx (Married Edward Symons, London, Middlesex, 1827)
Joanna Pinsent: 1808 – xxxx (Married William Bellman, London, Middlesex, 1830)
Emma Pinsent: 1811 – xxxx
Henry John Pinsent: 1812 – 1894 (Married Charlotte Best Sharpe, London, Middlesex, 1842)
George Pinsent: 1814 – 1838
Emma Pinsent: 1817 – xxxx
Family Branch: India
PinsentID: GRO0413
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Henry Pinsent has no birth record but he was probably the son of John Pinson and Elizabeth (née Lang). If so, his father was a “master mariner” and he was born in Paignton on the south coast of Devon in 1769. Henry seems to have moved up to London in the late 1700s, and he may have changed the spelling of his name on arrival. There were other Pinsent families (from the HENNOCK, DEVONPORT and TIVERTON branches) around at the time. Doubtless they had Devonshire accents – and this similarity may have facilitated the change.
The 1851 Census tells us that Henry Pinsent was an 82-year-old “former builder,” who had been born in Tiverton in 1769. I can find no sign of him being born near Tiverton. The best I can do is a “Henry son of John Pinson”, a “master mariner,” baptized in Paignton that year. It is fifty miles away. This Henry had a elder cousin (?), John Pinson, who had been born in Paignton in 1761.
London’s Land Tax Records show that a John Pinsent rented a property on the west side of “Little Guildford Street” (near Russell Square) from the Duke of Bedford between 1813 to 1832. Perhaps this Henry’s cousin (?) “John Pinson” as his father would have approximately 98 years old if he stopped making the Land Tax payments in 1832! It must have been a large piece of land as it was taxed at around £34 per annum. It certainly included Henry’s builder’s yard.
According to “Robson’s”, “Pigot’s” and other London City Directories, Henry Pinsent was a “carpenter” and an “undertaker” who operated out of “#22 Little Guildford Street, Russell Square”, between 1819 and 1840. He was also listed as living at that address in the “Dictionary of English Furniture Makers 1660 – 1840” in 1820.
While there, Henry was convicted of some “nuisance” in relation to an addition to“a first-rate dwelling house on the north side of the public road or way leading from London to Uxbridge, called the Uxbridge road, and being the first and corner house west from Peterburgh Place.” What the problem was is not stated; however Henry’s appeal failed and he dealt with the problem. “The order of Court having been complied with, the surveyor certified the same on the 18th October 1831, and filed a certificate with the clerk of the peace”. The prosecuting surveyor grumbled that the appeal cost him £50, so presumably Henry had been spared costs (Accounts&papers of the House of Commons: Volume 44: Returns relating to District Surveyors).
Henry and his family had moved to “#41 Seymour Street, Euston Square”, near “Hyde Park” by 1836 and that was where he was living when the Census takers caught up with him in 1841. Nevertheless, he must have retained some connection to the “Little Guildford Street” property as his wife, Joanna, died there in 1848. Henry had married Joanna Wogan in St. Giles in the Fields parish church in March 1800. They had nine children (seven daughters and two sons) over a period of seventeen years. London was not a healthy place in the early part of the 19th Century and infant deaths were all too common until the City fathers rebuilt the sewers in the second half of the century. Henry and Joanna lost at least four daughters (Mary Ann, Henrietta, Emma and Emma) early, and they reused the names “Henrietta” and “Emma” after two of the deaths.
Sadly, their eldest surviving daughter, Eliza Pinsent, was tricked into a bigamous marriage in 1836. The miscreant was apprehended and tried in London’s “Central Criminal Court” (“Old Bailey”). The case transcript is available online. Eliza was “in service” and training to be a “cook” when the deception occurred. She was thirty-one years old and she had around £126 saved up when she met and fell for William John Blackstone Steedman. He claimed to have money and property of his own, and they were married in front of witnesses in St. George’s Church in Bloomsbury in January 1836.
Needless to say, Mr. Steedman took control of her money and, after forty days or so, he started to take trips – ostensibly looking for a position as a landlord in a country inn. However, he eventually wrote to say that he would not be returning. Eliza told her father and he asked around and discovered that Mr. Steedman was previously married and he was then living with his wife and children in Blackfriars. Mr. Steedman was arrested and brought up in “Hatton Garden Court” for a preliminary hearing. There, it was established that he had been married for eleven years and had five children, and that his wife was aware of the deception! She was arrested on a charge of conspiracy (Sun (London) Saturday 9th April 1836). Mr. Steedman’s lawyer at the “Old Bailey” tried, but failed, to besmirch Eliza’s reputation and Mr. Steedman was sentenced to seven years transportation. He was shipped to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania, in Australia) in December that year. The “New South Wales and Tasmania, Australia, Convict Musters, 1806 – 1849” seem to show that he was granted a conditional pardon while there. I am not sure why! However, he was promptly sentence to another fourteen years (for what is unstated) in 1838.
In the course of her Court testimony, Eliza (“a well-looking woman”) referred to her sister, Mrs. Simmons (Symons) with whom she stayed after her “marriage” fell apart. Her brother George Pinsent testified to being present and a witness at the so-called “marriage” – which took place in Bloomsbury. Eliza had had enough. She never remarried.
Interestingly, her father Henry Pinsent registered the death of an eight-month old granddaughter, Eliza Emma Pinsent in July 1837. Whose child it was is not specified. It could conceivably have belonged to his eldest daughter, Mary Ann Pinsent or his youngest, Emma Pinsent – if they were still alive. Alternatively, is must have belonged to Eliza as her other two sisters had long since married. Henrietta married Edward Symons (Simmons) – a “coach painter” in 1827, and Joanna married William Bellman – a “beer-shop keeper” in St. Marylebone in London in 1830. Their brother George had trained as a “chorister” at St. Paul’s Cathedral (A History of English Cathedral Music: 1549-1889: John Skelton Bumpus) and was a “professor of music.” Sadly, he died of a fever in 1838, at the age of 23 years. He never married.
Three years after the Court case, Eliza died in an accident involving a “horse-drawn omnibus.” Evidently, “Mrs. Eliza Pincent, a respectable married female” was crossing Regent’s Street in Central London front of a ‘bus when the sound of its doors slamming triggered its horses to take off and they ran over her before the ‘bus driver could bring them under control (The Globe: Monday 17th June 1839).
Henry’s second son Henry John Pinsent married Charlotte Best Sharpe in Clerkenwell in September 1842 and had six children. His life is described elsewhere. Henry’s wife, Joanna (née Wogan) died at the Pinsents long-time home in Little Guildford Street in 1848. She was seventy six years old. Henry, who had long since retired, moved in with his son, Henry John, after he returned from India. He lived to be eighty five years old and died in Hornsey in London, in 1854.
Family Tree
PARENTS
Father: John Pinson: 1734 – N/A (unconfirmed)
Mother: Elizabeth Lang: N/A – N/A
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