Vital Statistics
John Pinsent: 1823 – 1902 GRO0511 (Agricultural Labourer, Bovey Tracey, Devon)
Elizabeth Loveys*: 1817 – 1884
Married: 1850: Bovey Tracey, Devon
Children by Elizabeth Loveys:
Emily Pinsent: 1850 – 1857
John Pinsent: 1852 – 1917 (Married Ann Paddon, Newton Abbot, Devon, 1874)
Elizabeth Pinsent: 1854 – xxxx (Married John William Abbott, Whitefield Chapel, London, 1874)
Anne Pinsent: 1856 – 1857
Anne Pinsent: 1858 – xxxx (Married James Grant Hannaford Hill, Bovey Tracey, Devon, 1873)
William Pinsent: 1860 – 1936 (Married Lydia Florence Warren, Woolwich, Kent, 1892)
Laura Emily Pinsent: 1863 – 1868
* Elizabeth’s illegitimate child: Jane Ann Mead Pinsent: 1845 – 1914
Family Branch: Bristol
PinsentID: GRO0511
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John Pinsent, or “Pinson” as he was probably first known, was the third surviving son of John Pinsent and Mary Follett. His father was a farm “labourer” who had married a girl from the nearby parish of Hennock. John was born in Ilsington Parish and apprenticed out while he was still a young boy. According to the 1841 census, he was one of ten “servants” in Mr. John Wills’ household at Compton Village, in Marldon Parish.
Being a servant in a rich household must have had its temptations and John (“junior”) developed sticky fingers. I do not know what the particular offense was; but he was charged, convicted and sentenced to three months imprisonment for larceny in January 1847 (Court, Land and Probate: England and Wales Criminal Registers: 1791-1892: Devon: Ancestry.com).
By the time he married Elizabeth Loveys in Bovey Tracey, in 1850, John was back to being an “agricultural labourer.” It must have been difficult for servants with a criminal record to find employment. Elizabeth was a “gentleman’s servant” and they were fortunate enough to lived with her employer, a Mr Joseph Steer, in his house on Fore Street in Bovey Tracey. The following year’s census shows that they were then lodging with Mr Steer – who was a 74 year-old “unmarried landed proprietor.” They had two children, Jane (aged six) and Emily (aged four months). The former, who was also referred to as Jane Ann Mead “Pinsent” seems to have been Elizabeth’s illegitimate daughter.
Joseph Steer was a compassionate man who must have been short of relatives of his own and fond of Jane and when he died the following year he left her the house, called “Bridge End Cottage”, and five pounds in investments. Her mother, Elizabeth, had control of the money and access to the property until such time as Jane daughter came off-age in around 1866 (Devon Record Office Will: IRW-S-1389: Joseph Steer: 1852). One would have thought that John and Elizabeth would have welcomed the bequest and their good fortune, and happily lived there with their daughter. However, they both seem to have pushed their luck. They became well-known defendants in local courts.
In August 1854, John and Elizabeth were sued in the “County Court” in Newton Abbot for refusing to pay 7s to a carrier who had taken a larger hamper of goods (items bequeathed by the late Joseph Steer) to Miss Christopher in Heavitree, near Exeter. The hamper contained broken “jelly glasses, a wax doll case and picture frames” when it arrived and John and Elizabeth blamed the carrier. They counter-sued for their loss and injury (Western Times: Saturday 26th August 1854). It is not clear what happened. I assume the goods left Bovey Tracey in good order.
Mr. Steer had purchased a consignment of beer from “Pinsent’s Brewery” in Newton Bushell (Highweek parish) just before he died and the executors of his estate, of whom Elizabeth was one (for some reason) refused to pay for it. John Ball Pinsent, (a member of the DEVONPORT branch of the family) took them to court to recover the cost of 17 gallons of beer (6d per gallon) in September 1854. Mr. W. M. Praed, Esq., the magistrate in the “County Court” thus found himself adjudicating the case of “Pinsent v Pinsent”. Elizabeth demurely stated that she had been a lowly servant of Mr. Steer and she had made the order on his behalf. He was now dead, of course. Her husband knew nothing about it and, what ever the brewers thought, he should not be expected to pay for it. His Lordship must have felt that he was in no position to say otherwise (Western Times: Saturday 23rd September 1854). I would have thought the estate would have been liable. There are no prizes given for guessing who drank the beer.
John was back in court in March 1856 charged with receiving “six pecks” (12 imperial gallons) of “chaff and bran” that Thomas Ware had stolen from his employer, Allen Searell. Thomas was a “wagoner,” who was seen by a “servant” at the “Union Inn” in Bovey Tracey handing John a half-full bag of chaff after feeding his horses. The local constable made the arrest. John was given a good character reference by an “Innkeeper” at Chudleigh Knighton but to no avail. Property theft was very much discouraged in those days and both the miscreants were both sentenced to ten weeks imprisonment (Western Times: Saturday 1st March 1856).
Elizabeth’s behaviour also left much to be desired: She was brought up at the Guildhall in Exeter in May 1856 on a warrant issued in Bovey Tracey alleging that she obtained goods from a “shoemaker” under falls pretenses. However, “the prisoner having just been confined and still labouring under great anxiety of mind, Mr. Bickell applied to the Bench, on those grounds, to be allowed to withdraw the warrant: The Bench acceded to the request” (Exeter Flying Post: Thursday 1st May 1856). Her daughter Anne Pinsent had been born on the 4th April and she seems to have been arguing postpartum depression! Sadly, Anne only lived for ten months.
John and Elizabeth had two sons and five daughters between 1850 and 1863; however, three of the girls died. The other two, Elizabeth and a second Anne and the two boys John Pinsent and William Pinsent lived to marry.
John seems to have tried out as a quarryman in Berry Pomeroy in the late 1850s; however it was a bad move. One of the fuses he set while working for Mr. Moysey at his limestone quarry at Longcombe in November 1860 misfired and he made the rudimentarly mistake of attempting to clear the charge before it was properly extinguished. The gunpowder ignited and he was thrown a considerable distance by the blast. None of his bones were broken but he was bruised and burnt and there were fears that he might loose his eyesight (Totnes Weekly Times: 17th November 1860). Whether he did or not, I am not sure. His wife Elizabeth and their four children, John, Elizabeth, Ann and William were living in Berry Pomeroy when the census was taken at the following year. However, John was back in Bovey Tracey. He was lodging on Hind Street with John Morgan, a pottery worker from Staffordshire. John was down in the books as being an “agricultural labourer;” however, he may have been working in one of the local potteries. Presumably he kept at least some of his sight.
The census records show that Elizabeth’s daughter Jane Ann Mead (Pinsent) – who technically still owned “Bridge End Cottage” was a “servant” living with George Churchward and his family at “Rewes Farm” in Stoke Gabriel. The cottage may have been sold at some point and the building replaced by a tenement block (known as “Bridge Cottages”) specifically built for clay works employees (Malcolm Billinge-2018-boveytraceyhistory.org.uk.)
What happened to Jane in the years that followed I do not know. She MAY have married in St. Mary’s Church in Lambeth, South London in 1866. However, if she did, she lied about her parentage. This Jane Pinsent told her husband that her father was William Pinsent and he was a “cider merchant”. I cannot place him. Perhaps they are “Vincents”.
John and Elizabeth’s two elder surviving children John Pinsent and Elizabeth Pinsent both married in 1874. Elizabeth did very well for herself. She went up to London and she was employed at the “Enrollment Office” in Chancery Lane when she married John William Abbot, the son of “Policeman” in “Whitfield Chapel” that April. Her brother John married Ann Paddon at the “Registry Office” in Newton Abbot a couple of months later. His life is described elsewhere. Their sister Anne married James Grant Hannaford Hill of Stoke Gabriel in Bovey Tracey, in October 1876 and their brother William became a “baker” and “confectioner.” He married Lydia Florence Warren in Woolwich, Kent in 1890. His life is also described elsewhere.
John and Elizabeth were back together by 1881. That year’s census shows that their children had moved out by then, and they were living with a lodger near the “end of Bridge Street” in Bovey Tracey. Perhaps this was one of the tenement buildings. Elizabeth was living on Station Road in Chudleigh when she died in February 1884.
I do not know if John was still working in 1883, however, there was a John Pinsent who “had been working on The Severn Tunnel” near Bristol who felt able to give another “labourer”, John Steer, an alibi that enabled him to get out of a charge of ferreting for rabbits in Bovey Tracey that November (Western Times: 21st November 1883). This could have been John, or perhaps it was his son, another John – but he was in Lancashire in 1881 and may still have been living there.
John Pinsent “senior” was a “pauper” in the “Liskeard Union Workhouse” in Liskeard, in Cornwall when the census takers made their rounds in 1901. He was said to be a 79 year-old widower, who had been born in Ilsington and spent his life as a “general labourer.” He died the following July and was buried in Liskeard (FindaGrave.com).
Family Tree
GRANDPARENTS
Grandfather: Richard Pinson: 1745 – 1825
Grandmother: Elizabeth Gregory: 1748 – 1837
PARENTS
Father: John Pinsent: 1782 – 1849
Mother: Mary Follett: 1782 – 1859
FATHER’S SIBLINGS (AUNTS, UNCLES)
Thomas Pinson: 1776 – xxxx
Richard Pinson: 1778 – 1868
Elizabeth Pinson: 1780 – xxxx
William Pinson: 1784 – xxxx
Mary Pinson: 1786 – 1873
Joseph Pinson: 1788 – xxxx
Abraham Pinson: 1787 – 1871
Rachael Pinson: 1796 – xxxx
Loyalty Pinson: 1799 – xxxx
MALE SIBLINGS (BROTHERS)
William Pinsent: 1811 – 1879
John Pinsent: 1817 – 1819
Joseph Pinson: 1819 – 1881
James Pinsent: 1825 – 1886
Samuel Pinson: 1828 – 1833
Thomas Pinson: 1830 – 1832
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