Robert Burton Pynsent

Vital Statistics

Black and white photograph of a white man with glasses and unkempt hair. He's moving his hands as he talks.
Robert Burton Pynsent photographed in 1967.

Robert Burton Pynsent: 1943 – 2022 GRO1216 (Professor of Czech and Slovak Literature, London)

Rosita Rosien: xxxx – 2009
Married: 1969: xxxx, xxxx

Children by Rosita Rosien:

Daughter (GRO1217)

Family Branch: Hennock
PinsentID: GRO1216

Robert Burton Pynsent was the eldest son of Charles Burton Pynsent by his wife Bessie Florence Hunt. He was born at Milliken Park, in Johnston, Renfrewshire in 1943, while his father was serving as a Flight Officer in the Royal Air Force. His younger brother was born in Caterham, in Surrey in 1945.

Robert attended the Hawthorn “preparatory” school in Bletchingley in Surrey in 1955 and, evidently, made a positive impression as Queen Elizabeth I’s “jealous Leicester” in the school play that year, which was entitled: “The Queen of Hearts” (Surrey Mirror: Friday 14th December 1955). Presumably he went to one of other of the public schools from there – I do not know which. He then went to Churchill College in Cambridge to read German, Czech and Slovak. He completed his doctorate in Czech literature in 1970 and joined University College of London’s School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies (SSEES) in 1972 (The London Times: 8th April 2023). He remained there throughout his professional life and retired from there in 2009. 

Scan of a blue book cover with an illustration of a woman and a tower.
“Questions of Identity: Czech and Slovak ideas of nationality and personality” by Robert B. Pynsent.
Flat green book cover.
“Julius Zeyer” by Robert B. Pynsent.

Robert was a critical thinker, and a prolific editor and writer. For example, he wrote: “Julius Zeyer: The Path to Decadence:” R. B. Pynsent: 1973;  and helped edit “Czech Prose and Verse: A Selection with an Introductory Essay: London East European Series”: R. B. Pynsent: 1979; “Decadence and Innovation: Austro-Hungarian Life and Art at the Turn of the Century”: R. B. Pinsent: 1989; and “Questions of Identity: Czech and Slovak Ideas of Nationality and Personality:” by R. B. Pynsent in 1994. He wrote and contributed to countless other works that have been published in English and Czech. I can claim no familiarity with the field!

Handwritten letter. Robert asks whether rumours that someone is writing a family history is true. He asks to buy a copy. He explains his family connection and asks to meet Guy.
Robert writes to “Captain” Pinsent to ask after the family history.

My father’s uncle (Guy Homfray Pinsent) corresponded with Robert’s father on family matters in the early 1960s and Robert Burton wrote my father in 1964, asking if anything had yet been published. Sadly, he was sixty years too soon. Robert Burton was a student at Cambridge at the time while I, Robert Hugh Pinsent, was at Aberdeen University. I met him once, around then – at an inter-university get-together. He recognized the incongruity of it all and mentioned it to my father in one of the family-related letters he wrote him. 

Scan of a Czech newspaper. It includes a comedic-looking caricature of Robert. The family crest, three stars and a chevron, is included too.
Robert makes the news in the 1960s.

In another letter, probably dating from 1967, he enclosed a cutting from a Czech newspaper that seems to refer to a talk and some poetry he read in Prague. I will leave it to you to decipher what it says! Robert seems to have been bemused by the attention that he (as a young graduate student) was receiving. Referring to the coat of arms shown in the cutting he says:  from “the crest or rather the arms, they think I’m a rather strange version of the English lord which always turn up here in jokes.” Nevertheless, he developed quite a few followers there, and he wondered if my youngest sister would like a Czech pen-pal. There must have been precious few Brits taking an interest in Czech and Slovak literature in those days. Robert Burton must have become used to the attention – it seems to have followed him throughout his career.   

Robert’s family lived in Speldhurst in Kent, where his mother was a prominent member of the Women’s Institute. The Kent and Sussex Courier tells us that “Robert Burton Pynsent, of Brook House, Speldhurst” was dinged £5 for a parking offence in 1966 (Friday 21st October 1966). His father, Charles Burton Pynsent, died the following year but his mother stayed on in the house at Speldhurst and it passed to Robert when she died in 1996.

Scan of a newspaper article titled "Expert on Czech literature who challenged the conventional view." It includes a picture of Robert in his 70s, with unkempt white hair and a smile.
Robert’s obituary is published in 2023.

Robert married Rosita Rosien, who taught German, in 1969 and they had a daughter who was to marry in 2003. Sadly, Rosita died in 2009. Robert elected to retire back to his family home in Speldhurst (The London Times: 8th April 2023). Nevertheless, he remained active in Slavonic studies; and he remained on the books of University College of London’s as an Emeritus Professor of Czech and Slovak Literature until he died in December 2022. 

Bright modern photograph of a red stone church and other buildings.
St. Mary’s church in Speldhurst via Adam Swaine on Flickr.

Family Tree

GRANDPARENTS

Grandfather: Robert Burton Pynsent: 1869 – 1953
Grandmother: Mary Isobel Addie: 1879 – 1956

PARENTS

Father: Charles Burton Pynsent: 1907 – 1967 ✔️
Mother: Bessie Florence Hunt: 1907 – 1996

FATHER’S SIBLINGS (AUNTS, UNCLES)

Charles Burton Pynsent: 1907 – 1967 ✔️
Joan Isobel Pynsent: 1909 – 1998
Mary Helen Pynsent: 1914 – xxxx

MALE SIBLINGS (BROTHERS)

Robert Burton Pynsent: 1943 – xxxx
Brother (GRO0710)

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