Vital Statistics
Charles Samuel Pinsent: 1864 – 1930 GRO1263 (Painter, Melbourne, Australia)
Edith Mary Dear: xxxx – 1924
Married: 1892: Victoria, Australia
Children by Edith Mary Dear:
Elizabeth Edith Pinsent: 1892 – xxxx (Married Unknown, Unknown, Western Australia, 1912)
Harold Charles Appleford Pinsent: 1894 – 1985 (Married (1) Hilda Murial Rossbotham, Victoria, Australia, 1919; (2) Veronica Mary Collins, xxxx, xxxx, xxxx; (3) Mavis Margaret Unknown, xxxx, xxxx. xxxx)
Alfred Samuel Pinsent: 1895 – 1896
Clement James Pinsent: 1898 – 1898
William Watts Francis Pinsent: 1900 – 1977 (Married Eva Dorothy Truscott, New South Wales, 1924)
George Watts Pinsent: 1902 – 1902
Family Branch: Australia
PinsentID: GRO1263
Charles Samuel Pinsent was the third surviving son of Thomas James Pinsent and Elizabeth (née James). His father was a “baker” who was born in Plymouth in England. He married in the Channel Islands and then took his young bride out to Australia to build a life in the recently discovered goldfields at Ballarat in Victoria. Charles was born in Daylesford near Ballarat in 1864. His father later moved to Melbourne and he grew up in Fitzroy with three brothers and a sister who, unfortunately, died young. His father seems to have done very well for himself – at first as a “baker” and then as a land developer in Fitzroy, which is now an inner suburb of Greater Melbourne.
Charles was probably the “C. Pinsent” nabbed by the police for stealing a watch in October 1889 (Victoria Police Gazette: October 9th 1889). However, I cannot be sure. If he is, he was certainly not without his faults. Charles married Edith Mary Dear in Melbourne in 1892 and they had six children, a girl and five boys, over the next ten years. Unfortunately all but the girl and two of the boys died in infancy or in early childhood.
Charles and Edith may have started married life living in one of the cottages on York Street that his father had built; however, he was no longer living at that address and his name was scratched from the list of eligible ratepayers’ in February 1893 (Mercury and Weekly Courier: Thursday 2nd February 1893). His father claimed it as his residence. An item in the following day’s newspaper confirms this. It states that Thomas Pinsent of “56 York Street, North Fitzroy” was a shareholder in “The Federal Bank of Australia,” which was in the process of being wound up (Table Talk: Friday 3rd February 1893).
Charles and Edith spent their first year in Carlton and then moved back to Fitzroy. Although they had six children, Charles Samuel’s marriage to Edith did not last and her two youngest were almost certainly illegitimate. The couple separated in 1898 and Charles filed papers for their divorce in 1914. However, it is not clear that it was ever finalized.
In April that year, Charles petitioned for divorce in the “Supreme Court of Victoria”. He claimed that all had gone well in the family until two years after the family moved out to Western Australia in 1896. In 1898, he saw his wife walking out with a stranger. He said he tried to put a stop to it but she refused and told him to mind his own business. Eventually, she took their daughter and moved out of the family home. He stayed on in Fremantle (Western Australia) for a while and tried to persuade her to come home but she refused, so he sold up and returned to Victoria with his son. It is worth noting that “C. Pinsent” offered an unfurnished room with fireplace in Perth for let in February 1897 (The West Australian (Perth: WA: 1879 – 1954): Wednesday 3rd February 1897). He told the court that although he wrote letters to her “care of the Fremantle post office” he never heard from her again. He also said that he went back to Western Australia to look for her later in 1898.
Charles was a “decorator” by trade and Melbourne’s Electoral Rolls show that he was a “painter” living with his parents and at least some of his brothers at “#118 Alexandra Parade” in Fitzroy by 1903. They also show that he was there in 1908, the year his mother died. She returned her not inconsiderable estate – (£2,085 combined “real” and “personal”) to her husband, whom she appointed her executor. When he died, the assets were primarily in real estate (Probate Records: Victoria State Archives).
In the years that followed Elizabeth’s death, Charles and his brothers (Thomas James Pinsent and Joseph Henry Pinsent) placed several “in memoriam” notices of remembrance in “The Melbourne Argus” newspaper commemorating her passing. He was clearly living at home with his family.
Edith, meanwhile, moved to Kalgoolie, a gold mining town in Western Australia. She had one son, William Watts Francis Pinsent in 1900 and another, George Watts Pinsent in 1902. By inference, their surname should probably be Watts. Edith’s daughter probably married in Western Australia in 1912 (Australian Marriage Index:1788-1949: Ancestry.com) and Edith elected to return to Melbourne in 1914. Charles heard she was coming and petitioned for the divorce. Her son Harold seems to have told her of his plans. Edith’s brother-in-law, Joseph Henry Pinsent, served the legal citation in June 1914. Why the delay in getting a divorce? Charles claimed that he had taken a trip back to Western Australia to find Edith and that he had used up all his savings (Victoria Divorce Case Cause Book: 1861 – 1938). The marriage had ended but it is not clear that the divorce was then finalized. Edith, needless to say, had a slightly different take on events.
That August, a local newspaper discussed a claim for maintenance that Edith made before the, local, court in Fitzroy in an article delightfully entitled “Painter Pinsent’s Peccadilloes:” Edith’s lawyer stated that when she returned from Western Australia she was met by one of her sons who told her that her husband was filing for divorce. On being questioned, Edith said that their marriage had broken down long ago and she had left her husband no less than three times because he was physically abusive. She made no mention of her own activities. Edith claimed she had earned her living in Western Australia as a “dressmaker” and that while they were together she frequently had to pay her husband’s bills. On one occasion, towards the end when she went back to claim her belongings, she found he had already sold them – even her sewing machine. Now that she was back in Melbourne and in “indifferent health,” she asked the Court to serve her husband with a maintenance order. Edith’s eldest child, a daughter, was probably married by then and her remaining sons were shown to be self-supporting so they were not an issue (The Truth, Melbourne, Vic.: 1914 – 1918: Saturday 15th August 1914). The Justice awarded her 27s a week and threatened a £25 penalty for three months default. Her eldest son, Harold Charles Pinsent, was shortly to join the “Australian Imperial Force” and serve with considerable distinction in France. His life is described elsewhere.
After the court case, Edith Mary left Melbourne and moved back to Dunolly (180 kilometres) northwest of the City (Australia Electoral Rolls: 1914). It was where her own family came from. Nevertheless, when her younger son William Watts Francis Pinsent moved to Darlinghurst, near Sydney in New South Wales, a few years later she went with him. They lived together on “Bourke Street” in Darlinghurst and she died there in 1924. William was a “photograher” by profession. Coincidentally, or otherwise, Darlinghurst now hosts the “Australian Centre for Photography”! William was born in Western Australia in 1900 and was probably the result of whatever dalliance Edith had had while out there. He would probably not qualify as a true Pinsent. His mother died a few months before William married. His life is discussed elsewhere.
Edith’s estranged husband, Charles Samuel Pinsent, lived on “Alexandra Parade” in Fitzroy with his brother, Joseph Henry Pinsent and his father Thomas James “senior” until the latter died in 1915. Thomas had designated his two elder sons, Thomas James Pinsent “junior” (a “sign writer and decorator living at the corner of Brunswick Street and York Street” and Joseph Henry Pinsent (a “collector of #118 Alexandra Parade”) as his executors when he signed his will in 1909 – a year after his wife died. They administered his estate (Probate Records: Victoria State Archives). He held real estate – valued at £2,554 and split it between his three sons.
In later life, Charles Samuel appears to have been a member of the “Collingwood Working Men’s Club” and he was one of six “comrades” elected to its “Management Committee” in March 1927 (Labor Call: Thursday 24th March 1927). The committee had the delicate task of making arrangements for the annual snooker and billiards tournament and social evening. Gambling may have been more in Charles’s line. In January 1929 he pleaded guilty to a charge of “street betting” and was fined £20 with £3 costs for his sins (Brisbane Telegraph: Friday 25th January 1929). Charles died in February 1930 and he was buried in Melbourne Cemetery (Victoria, Australia, Cemetery Records and Headstone Transcriptions, 1844-1997).
Family Branch
Grandparents
Grandfather: William Pinsent: 1811 – 1879
Grandmother: Sarah Eales: xxxx – xxxx
Parents
Father: Thomas James Pinsent: 1833 – 1915
Mother: Elizabeth James: xxxx – 1908
FATHER’S SIBLINGS (AUNTS, UNCLES)
Thomas James Pinsent: 1833 – 1915
Elizabeth Pinsent: 1836 – xxxx
MALE SIBLINGS (BROTHERS)
Thomas James Pinsent: 1858 – 1932
William Henry Pinsent: 1860 – 1860
Joseph Henry Pinsent: 1863 – 1945
Charles Samuel Pinsent: 1864 – 1930
William John Pinsent: 1866 – 1905
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