Vital Statistics
Thomas Johnson Pinsent: 1856 – 1925 GRO0849 (Shoe-finisher and hair dresser, Leicester)
1. Sarah Ann Ellis: 1858 – 1882
Married: 1875: Leicester, Leicestershire
Children by Sarah Ann Ellis:
John Arthur Pinsent: 1875 – 1942 (Married Ada Soloman, Leicester, Leicestershire, 1895)
Harry Pinsent: 1877 – 1905 (Married Florence Hannah Clayton, Leicester, Leicestershire, 1899)
Ada Pinsent: 1878 – 1882
Emma Louise Pinsent: 1879 – xxxx (Married William Warburton, Leicester, Leicestershire, 1899)
Jane Pinsent: 1880 – 1959 (Married William Perry, Leicester, Leicestershire, 1904)
Sarah Ann Pinsent: 1882 – 1882
2. Caroline Deakin: 1858 – 1921
Married: 1883: Leicester, Leicestershire
3. Emma Jarvis: 1858 – 1924
Married: 1922: Leicester, Leicestershire, 1922
Family Branch: Tiverton
PinsentID: GRO0849
Thomas Johnson was the eldest son of John Pinsent and Elizabeth (née Johnson). He was born in Loughborough, into a family that included four girls and seven boys who were born over a period of twenty-four years. Thomas Johnson’s father was a “shoe finisher” who had moved to Leicester in around 1868. Eight of the children (including Thomas Johnson Pinsent) grew up and married in Leicester and added to the local gene pool. Although John initially worked in the shoe trade in Leicester, he later ran a shop on the Birstall Road and, in around 1882, he took over the management of the “Sir Robert Peel” beer house on Bedford Street.
Thomas Johnson Pinsent followed his father into the shoe trade. He was a “shoe finisher” when he married Sarah Ann Ellis, the daughter of a “nailer” (probably of shoes) in 1875. Thomas remained in the shoe-trade for a few more years but he eventually switched profession and he was said to be a “hairdresser, perfumer and tobacconist” living at 21 Willow Bridge Street, in Leicester, in White’s 1877 Directory. Although nominally still a “shoe finisher”, he was a “hairdresser” on Willow Bridge Street when the property he rented was put up for sale, by auction, in January 1885 (Leicester Chronicle Saturday 31st January 1885).
Thomas Johnson and Sarah had two boys and four girls in the years that followed their marriage in 1875; however Sarah Ann died after the birth of her last child, a daughter who was also named Sarah Ann Pinsent in January 1882 (Leicester Daily Chronicle: Saturday 28th January 1882). Sadly, another of Thomas Johnson’s daughters (Ada Pinsent) died later the same year.
Thomas Johnson was left with four children (two boys, John Arthur Pinsent and Harry Pinsent and two girls, Emma Louise Pinsent and Jane Pinsent) to look after. He moved back into his father’s beer house at “69 Bedford Street” and he was living there when he married Caroline Chaplin (née Deakin) in April 1883. She was a widow with a young son, Robert Ernest Chaplin who she, needless to say, brought with her into the marriage. He shows up as “Robert E. C. Pinsent” in the 1891 Census but otherwise must have kept to his father’s surname. He does not figure elsewhere. Thomas and Caroline had no children of their own.
Thomas (and his younger brother George Pinsent) helped their father out behind the bar at the “Sir Robert Peel” and participated in his passion for dog racing. They can be found helping out as “marksmen” and “pistol firers” at local dog-races (Leicester Chronicle: Saturday 13th May 1882). The family greyhound or whippet (“Pincent’s Turpin”) regularly competed in these events and had some, albeit limited, success. Both brothers also took up their father’s interest in “Pedestrianism” (the then current fad of competitive walking) and they competed in local heats throughout the early 1880s (Leicester Chronicle: Saturday 10th September 1881). George seems have been more committed than Thomas. The two sports provided both a recreational outlet – and an opportunity for a bit of working class betting.
The 1891 Census data tells us that Thomas Johnson was a full-time “hairdresser“ living with his second wife and one daughter on Catherine Street in Leicester. His eldest son John Arthur Pinsent was away from home. He had had a troubled life. He was charged and convicted of theft of a pair of boots at the Leicester Police Court in 1885 and was picked up for sleeping rough in Derby in 1889. The magistrates there decided that he should be sent to an industrial school until he was sixteen years old (Derby Mercury: Wednesday July 31st 1889). John Arthur may well have been living there when the census takers made their rounds in Leicester 1891. On that occasion, Thomas’s younger son, Harry Pinsent, was living with his grandfather, Benjamin Ellis. Benjamin was a foreman in the shoe trade and presumably supervised Harry’s training as a “shoe-finisher.”
Thomas’s daughter also had her problems growing up. She was charge with the theft of two oranges, valued at 2d, in 1893 and her father pleaded with the court that she was beyond his control. Evidently, he had previously taken her to the police station after finding her with money she had taken from shop tills. The bench ordered her to be sent to an industrial school until the age of 16 years (Leicester Daily Mercury: Monday 27th February 1893).
While living on Catherine Street, Thomas Johnson gave evidence at the inquest of a 34-years old shoe finished who had fallen down stairs on returning home from the pub and broken his neck. Charles testified that he had seen James Hyde pass his hairdresser’s shop at around a quarter past eleven – and, crucially, that he was not sober (Leicester Chronicle: Saturday 15th November 1890). Thomas Johnson continued to run his business “on his own account” long after his children had left home (1911 Census).
Thomas Johnson was still living on Catherine Street in 1921 when his second wife, Caroline, died. He married a widow, Emma Jarvis (née Sykes), the following year. The Leicester Electoral Rolls give her name as “Emily”; however that is almost certainly wrong – unless she went by both. She died two years later and Thomas Johnson Pinsent followed, in March 1925.
Thomas Johnson’s two sons both married: John Arthur (the elder) in 1895 and Harry (the younger) in 1899. Their lives are described elsewhere. His surviving daughters Emma Louise Pinsent and Jane Pinsent also married; the former to a “shoe-clicker” in 1899, and the latter, who was a “barmaid,” to a “civil servant” in 1904.
Family Tree
GRANDPARENTS
Grandfather: Thomas Pinsent: 1795 – 1860
Grandmother: Hannah Johnson: 1800 – 1871
PARENTS
Father: John Pinsent: 1836 – 1899
Mother: Elizabeth Johnson: 1837 – 1909
FATHER’S SIBLINGS (AUNTS, UNCLES)
Fanny Pinsent: 1820 – 1880
William Pinsent: 1822 – xxxx
Thomas Pinsent: 1824 – 1831
Caroline Pinsent: 1825 – 1864
James Pinsent: 1831 – 1902
Elizabeth Pinsent: 1833 – 1833
Elizabeth Pinsent: 1833 – xxxx
Henry Pinsent: 1838 – 1846
George Pinsent: 1839 – 1857
Charles Pinsent: 1842 – 1882
MALE SIBLINGS (BROTHERS)
Thomas Johnson Pinsent: 1856 – 1925
John Henry Pinsent: 1858 – 1861
George Pinsent: 1861 – 1932
John Arthur Pinsent: 1869 – 1930
Henry Pinsent: 1871 – 1939
William Horace Pinsent: 1874 – 1876
Horace Pinsent: 1879 – 1949
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