Vital Statistics
William Pinsent: 1797 – 1882 GRO0888 (Farmer, Salesman, Teigngrace, Modbury and Newton Abbot)
Jane Crockwell: 1792 – 1855
Married: 1822: Coffinswell, Devon
Children by Jane Crockwell:
William Pinsent: 1825 – 1854
Jane Pinsent: 1825 – 1828
Margaret Pinsent: 1826 – 1888 (Married James Thomson, St. Pancras, London, 1849)
Jane Pinsent: * 1828 – xxxx (Married Edward Farrar, Paddington, London, 1855)
John Pinsent: 1829 – xxxx
Mary Anne Pinsent: 1831 – xxxx
Thomas Pinsent: 1833 – 1851
Charles Henry Crockwell Pinsent: 1835 – xxxx (Married (1) Mary Ann Cann, Plymouth, Devon, 1858; (2) Sarah Staines, Newton Abbot, Devon, 1868)
* Jane had an illegitimate daughter, Emma M. Pinsent, in Exeter, Devon, in 1850.
Family Branch: Hennock
PinsentID: GRO0888
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William was the eldest surviving son of Gilbert Pinsent by his wife, Margaret (née Snow). He had an elder brother, Thomas, who died at the age of fourteen years in 1804 and a younger one, John Pinsent, who was two years his junior. He also had an sister, Mary Snow Pinsent, who survived and later went on to marry. Their father was a successful tenant farmer and they grew up on his farm at “Ponswin” in Kingsteignton.
William’s father brought him up to be a farmer and he moved to a farm at “Twelve Oaks” in the nearby parish of Teigngrace after marrying Jane Crockwell, in Coffinswell, in 1822. She was probably the daughter of Henry Crockwell, niece of the Richard Crockwell who died in 1835, and the sister of the Ann Crockwell, who died in Newton Abbot in 1846 respectively. If so, Richard left her ten pounds and Ann L. 20 in their respective wills (Stamp Office: Inland Revenue Wills 1835 & 1846). William’s farm, which was owned by Mr. George Templer Esquire, must have been fairly large as it straddled the parish boundary with Highweek. William paid a land tax of £2 5s 0d for the Teigngrace section and £1 8s 8d, for the Highweek portion. At the same time, he also appears to have rented “two parts of Leggers” in Teigngrace – which, between them, had a combined tax burden of £1 1s 11.5d. He also controlled land at “Greenhill” in the same parish at an additional cost of 1s 6d. This must have amounted to a considerable land holding!
Interestingly, the Land Tax Records show that the Highweek portion of the property was nominally (or possibly mistakenly?) rented to Thomas Pinsent in 1825, 1826, 1828 and 1829. I am not sure which Thomas this was! The most likely candidate (in Gilbert’s immediate family) would seem to be his cousin Thomas Pynsent (son of Charles Pinsent) who was then farming at “Pitt” in Hennock. However, it may, alternatively, have been sublet to Thomas Pinsent of “Greenhill”, in Kingsteignton, who was a major land owner in the region. This latter Thomas was from the DEVONPORT branch of the family.
In 1828, John Pinsent (presumably William’s younger brother) managed “Shilston (200 rentals)”, in the village of Modbury for a Splatt, Esquire. It had a land tax of £11 9s 9d. William seems to have surrendered most of his farmland around then and he replaced his brother and took over the Shilston rentals the following year. He moved his family to Modbury and his last four children were baptized there. The Modbury Parish indenture records show that William took on apprentices in 1829 and 1834.
William managed the rental property until 1831 and then signed on to run “West Leigh farm” for W. Praede Esquire. It must have been another large land-holding as it had a land tax of £6 8s 8d. According to the County Electoral Roll, William lived at “West Leigh” in 1832 and 1834, and the 1841 Census shows that he was still there into the early 1840s. However, a notice in the Western Times (Saturday 2nd July 1842) tells us he was then looking to move out. Farmers interested in renting “West Leigh” and “Willings” (“195 acres, of which 27 are meadow, pasture, and orchard, and the remained principally arable land”) were advised to contact Mr. Pinsent, the sitting tenant.
William had surrendered the farm by the time the next census was made and his own family was starting to disperse. For all his apparent success, he does not appear to have been particularly committed to farming and from then on he seems to have tried his hand at other things. He is described as being a “butcher” at the time of his daughter Margaret’s wedding in London in 1849.
The 1851 Census, meanwhile, tells us that he was as a “commercial traveller” and a “book-seller” staying at the Carlyon Arms Inn, in St. Neots, Cornwall. He must have been good at it as his employers, “Tallis and Co.”, singled him out at its staff dinner in 1852: “Mr. Pinsent, (who) obtained, in the space of five weeks, 272 orders for various works, to be delivered in part monthly, – the books, when completed, averaged from £1 to £5 each. Mr. Pinsent, in return, candidly acknowledged that it was not so much from his individual exertions as from the cheapness and getting up of the various works published by his spirited employers, that he proved so successful” (Western Times: Saturday 24th January 1852).
Despite this evidence of change, he was once again described as being a “farmer” when his daughter Jane married Edward Farrar, a “plumber” in London, in 1855. This Jane, who was the second of this name, had had an illegitimate daughter, Emma, in Exeter in 1850. The child was living with its grandmother Jane (nee Crockwell) and uncle Charles Henry Crockwell Pinsent in Plymouth when the Census was taken the following year. Emma’s mother was missing. She was probably already up in London.
William was back to being a “commercial traveller” when his son Charles married in 1858. Three years later, at the time of the 1861 Census, he was a “book traveller (selling) weekly and monthly prints.” On that occasion, he was on the road again, staying at the Ebrington Inn, in Plymouth. The following year, William was sued in the County Court by his then employer, a Mr. Mackenzie of London for £10 balance on a disputed account. The defendant offered to pay £7 10s, stating that the plaintiff had omitted to give him credit for £2 10s (Western Times: Saturday 13th December 1862). By then William was a widowe. His wife had died in Plymouth in 1855.
William claimed to be a “merchant” when his son Charles married for a second time, in 1868, and was a “poulterer” staying with a lodging-house keeper in St. Columb Major in Cornwall at the time of the 1871 Census. Perhaps he was still acting as a “travelling salesman” of some sort. William was in lodgings in Newton Abbot when the Census takers returned in 1881 and he died in the Union Workhouse there, aged 85, the following year. Sadly, he does not seem to have had been as successful as his father (Gilbert Pinsent) or, for that matter, his brother (John Pinsent). Their lives are described elsewhere.
William and Jane (née Crockwell) had four sons and four daughters; however, there is not a lot known about any of them. Their eldest son, another William Pinsent, appears to have been a soldier in the Tower of London Garrison at the time of the 1851 Census. He was a “Sergeant” in the Coldstream Guards. He never married and, sadly, died of tuberculosis in London, in 1854. I have no information on their second son, John Pinsent. He may have died young or emigrated. Their third, Thomas Pinsent, was almost certainly the eighteen-years old young man who died at #2 Martin Lane in Plymouth in February 1851. His mother and his brother were living on the same street when the Census takers made their rounds a few months later.
William’s fourth and youngest son, Charles Henry Crockwell Pinsent, was a teenager living with his mother, in Plymouth in 1851 and a “cellar-man” living in Park Street, Plymouth when he married Mary Ann Cann, a girl from Horrabridge, in 1858. They stayed on in Plymouth and a few years later we find that Charles was a “store-keeper” in East Stonehouse. The 1861 Census does not specify the type of store but he was reported to be a “draper” when his wife, Mary Ann Pinsent died, in Torquay, in April 1868. Sadly, there were no children.
Charles was a “widowed clerk” when he married Sarah Staines in the Wesleyan Chapel in Newton Abbot a few months later, and a “clerk in general manufacturing” when the census takers came to call in 1871. I can find no sign of either Charles or Sarah in England after that. Perhaps they emigrated in the 1870s.
There was a Charles Pinsent who was a Methodist of the right age and born in England acting as a “Night Watchman” in Moncton, New Brunswick at the time of the 1881 Canadian Census. This could be the same man; however, if so, his wife had probably died and he must have married to a local girl, Mary (unknown). Perhaps he just emigrated and remarried. Charles Henry Crockwell Pinsent does not seem to have had children in England, at any rate.
William and Jane’s eldest surviving daughter, Margaret Pinsent, married a “baker,” James Thomson, in London in 1849. They were living in St. Pancras, at the time of the 1851 census and Margaret’s still unmarried sister, Jane Pinsent – who had been a “scholar” in Modbury in 1841 – was living with them. She had had an illegitimate daughter, Emma M. Pinsent, in Exeter in 1850 but had left it with her mother, Jane (née Crockwell) and her younger brother Charles Henry Crockwell Pinsent in Plymouth while she was up in London. Jane married a “plumber”, in Paddington, London in 1855 and her daughter presumably joined her at some point. Emma Pinsent, was a “scholar” visiting a family in Exeter at the time of the 1861 Census; however, she was in domestic service with a retired pharmacist in St. Mary’s Parish, Lambeth in London ten years on from that. I do not know if she married.
William and Jane’s third daughter, Mary (Anne) was a “scholar” in Modbury in 1841 and a “child’s maid” in service with a draper in Newton Abbott at the time of the 1851 census. It is not clear what happened to her. For all that William and Jane had eight children, including four boys, it does not seem as if their male line continues.
Family Tree
Grandparents
Grandfather: John Pinsent: 1728 – 1772
Grandmother: Susanna Pooke: 1730 – 1772
Parents
Father: Gilbert Pinsent: 1758 – 1835
Mother: Margaret Snow: 1756 – 1843
Father’s Siblings (Aunts, Uncles)
John Pinsent: 1751 – 1753
John Pinsent: 1753 – 1821
Robert Pinsent: 1753 – 1787
Thomas Pinsent: 1754 – 1785
William Pinsent: 1757 – 1835
Gilbert Pinsent: 1758 – 1835 ✔️
Charles Pinsent: 1765 – 1765
Charles Pinsent: 1766 – 1826
Samuel Pinsent: 1767 – 1775
Joseph Pinsent: 1770 – 1835
Male Siblings (Brother)
Thomas Pinsent: 1790 – 1804
William Pinsent: 1797 – 1882 ✔️
John Pinsent: 1799 – 1858
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