Vital Statistics
Paul Desmond Pinsent: 1915 – 1997 GRO0712 (Engineer and Businessman, Buenos Aires)
Constance Kathleen Hamilton Heneghan: 1918 – 2003
Married: 1941: London
Children by Constance Kathleen Hamilton Heneghan:
Daughter (GRO0660)
Daughter (GRO0367)
Daughter (GRO0552)
Daughter (GRO1089)
Family Branch: Devonport
PinsentID: GRO0712
References
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Paul Desmond was the second son of Sidney Hume Pinsent by his wife, Beatrice Elena Le Bas. He was born in Rosario, in the Province of Santa Fe in Argentina. His father registered his birth at the local “British Consulate” as he was a British Subject. Paul was brought up in Argentina and then sent to a (now, I believe, closed) Catholic “preparatory school” at Lady Cross in East Sussex. From there, he joining his brothers at “Downside,” a major Catholic “Public” (private) School at Stretton in the Fosse, in Somerset. Paul Desmond and his brothers Harold Ross and Roger Philip had left “Downside” by the time their younger brother Neville James Quintus went there.
Ship Manifests now available on-line (ancestry.com), show that Paul and his brothers made several trips back and forth between Argentina and England in the 1930s. However, it was a long way to go and they probably spent a considerable amount of time with their grandfather, Adolphus Ross Pinsent, his second wife Ethel Mary Philomena Whitelaw and their son Basil Hume Pinsent at their home in Kent. Basil was also sent to “Downside” school and was there alongside Paul and his elder brother Harold. The Argentinian boys continued to refer to Tunbridge Wells as their “home” after their grandfather died (in 1929), and it was from there that Paul Desmond married Constance Kathleen Hamilton Heneghan, in 1941. She was the daughter of “medical practitioner”.
At the outset of the “Second World War” Desmond was a university student living on Richmond Hill Road, in Birmingham (1939 Register). He received a degree in “Mechanical Engineering” at “Birmingham University” and joined the “Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve” as a “Lieutenant (Engineering)” on 21st January 1940. Naval Records show that he was attached to “H.M.S. Dorsetshire” (a ” County-Class cruiser”) on 24th December 1940. The ship is best known for having sunk the German pocket-battleship “Bismarck” with torpedoes after it had been crippled by allied action in the South Atlantic in May 1941. Naval records also show that he was transferred to “H.M.S. Kent” (another “cruiser”) in June 1941, after a few months leave during which he had got married. The cruiser spent the later part of 1941 and much of 1942 on the Murmansk run- protecting convoys to and from Russia. Presumably he was on board when “H.M.S. Kent” took the Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, to Murmansk to meet up with Comrade Stalin. Paul served on “H.M.S. Kent” until October 1943. His last wartime assignment was as Chief Engineer on “H.M.S. Liddesdale” (a “destroyer”). He was on board during the relief of Greece in August 1945, and received a mention in the dispatches.
Paul and Constance lived at “65 Elgin Crescent” in London during and immediately after the war, and three of their daughters were born while they lived there. After leaving the Navy, Paul joined the English affiliate of the American (“Engineering”) firm “Babcock and Wilcox;” a company that was then, and still is, actively involved in generating electricity. The Company paid for Paul to visit its head office in New York before sending him down to Argentina. He left Liverpool on the “S.S. Franconia” and arrived in New York on 28th October 1946. Constance, meanwhile, took her three daughters straight to Buenos Aires. They left Southampton on the “Royal Mail Lines Ltd.” ship “Alcantara” on the 7th November 1946.
Paul and Constance had their fourth daughter while in Argentina. The family returned to England for a visit in 1949. They left Buenos Aires on the “Blue Star Line” ship “Argentina Star” and arrived in London on 15th December. They stayed for four months, and then returned on the “Blue Star Line” ship “Uruguay Star”. Paul was still working for “Babcock and Wilcox.” The next family trip back seems to have been in 1954. On this occasion, Paul brought his elderly parents, Sidney Hume and mother, Beatrice Elena, with him. They arrived in Southampton in May 1954 on the “Royal Mail Ltd.” ship “Alcantara.” Presumably they all returned to Buenos Aires a few months later.
An item (in Spanish) in the “Boletin Oficial de la Republica Argentina, 1971 2da-seccion”, seems to show that Paul was the authorized “agent” for his brother, Harold Ross Pinsent in regard to some business he had with “Babcock and Wilcox” in 1971.
Constance visited Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with her eldest daughter in 1961 and their visa applications are available through the Ancestry.com website. The documents include their photographs. Paul Desmond continued to work in Argentina – and to indulge his hobby of playing with vintage cars. He can be seen in a photograph driving a 1928 era, “4 ½ litre, Bentley” (#HF3139) in the “BDC Review 126, November 1977”: (vintagebentley.org). I am sure he would have loved to find one of his father’s “Lanchesters”. Paul Desmond Pinsent died in Buenos Aires in 1997 and his wife Constance Kathleen died there a few years later, in 2003. Their daughters seem to have stayed on in South America. At least three of them married and had children of their own. They are probably still alive today.
Family Tree
Grandparents
Grandfather: Adolphus Ross Pinsent: 1851 – 1929
Grandmother: Alice Mary Nuttall: 1855 – 1901
Parents
Father: Sidney Hume Pinsent: 1878 – 1969
Mother: Beatrice Elena Le Bas: 1882 – 1956
FATHER’S SIBLINGS and half-siblings (AUNTS, UNCLES)
Sidney Hume Pinsent: 1879 – 1969 ✔️
Frances Maude Pinsent: 1882 – 1953
Cecil Ross Pinsent: 1884 – 1963
Gerald Hume Saverie Pinsent: 1888 – 1976
Basil Hume Pinsent: 1911 – 2000
MALE SIBLINGS (BROTHERS)
Harold Ross Pinsent: 1913 – 1988
Paul Desmond Pinsent: 1915 – 1997 ✔️
Roger Philip Pinsent: 1916 – 1997
Neville James Quintus Pinsent: 1921 – 2013
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