Vital Statistics
Thomas Pinsent: 1657 – 1696 GRO1790 (Tanner of Slade)
Ann Waters: xxxx – xxxx
Married: 1678: Bovey Tracey
Children by Ann Waters:
Susannah Pinsent: 1678 – xxxx
(?) Simon Pinsent: xxxx – 1744 (Tanner of Slade, Bovey: Married Amy Puddicombe of Lustleigh, 1701)
Elizabeth Pinsent: 1682 – xxxx
Thomas Pinsent: 1684 – 1685
Ann Pinsent: 1686 – xxxx
Thomas Pinsent: 1691 – 1777 (Tanner of Slade, Bovey Tracey and Farmer of Pitt, Hennock: Married Mary Gale, 1712)
Robert Pinsent: 1693 – xxxx
Unknown Pinsent: 1696 – 1696
Unknown Pinsent: 1696 – 1696
Family Branch: Hennock
PinsentID: GRO1790
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Thomas Pinsent was, most likely, the son of another Thomas Pinsent – by his wife Julian (née Wilmeade). There are strong circumstantial links between him and his (inferred) father but there are gaps in the parish records, so I am unable to confirm his parentage. Given this element of doubt, Thomas has been pruned from the “DEVONPORT” tree and designated the founding father of a separate branch of the family: the “HENNOCK” branch. He was probably born in either Hennock or Bovey Tracey shortly after his parents married in 1657.
This particular Thomas seems to have worked at the tannery at “Slade” that his father acquired through his marriage to Julian Wilmeade (see elsewhere). He lived with his family in Bovey Tracey – which allowed for easier access to the tannery than from Hennock village – and he married Ann Waters there in 1678. They had several children; however, their none of their lives are particularly well documented – again a function of poor record keeping at the end of the 17th Century. In addition to the six children (eight if you include two unnamed twins who were born and (presumably) died in Bovey Tracey in 1696), Thomas and Ann probable had a son called Simon Pinsent – who would been born shortly after they married. Unfortunately, I have not been able to locate his birth record either.
There was a Simon Pinsent born to a Thomas baptized in Bovey Tracey in 1652; however, that was five years before Thomas married Julian Wilmeade, so the date seems completely wrong. The entry was; however, a late addition to the parish register and it could, I suppose, have been inserted as 1652 in mistake for 1657. Perhaps he was Thomas “junior’s” uncle. He is not likely to have been our Thomas’s elder brother!
The younger Simon (son of Thomas and Ann) was included in a “lease for three lives” negotiated by his grandfather (or his father) and, as the, probably eldest, son of Thomas “junior,” he appears to have taken over the tannery at Slade when his grandfather died in 1701. That was the year (coincidentally or otherwise) that Simon married. This would be extremely late for someone born in 1652 or 1657 to start a family. Simon’s life is described elsewhere.
Thomas Pinsent “junior’s” life is hard to differentiate from his father’s as they share a common Christian name. However, Thomas and Ann definitely had a son, Robert Pinsent, but it is not clear what happened to him. He is another loose end. Robert’s younger brother, the Thomas Pinsent, who was born in 1690/1, seems to have joined his father and his (?) elder brother, Simon, in working at the tannery – at least he did until he married, in 1711.
This was the time of the great die-off that occurred in the DEVONPORT Pinsent family at “Knighton” and they ran out of heirs. What happened to the farm there is uncertain. However, this third Thomas and his wife Mary (née Gale) seem to have moved to a nearby farm at “Pitt” in Hennock that very likely included land derived from Thomas’s “Knighton” cousins.
It is worth noting that the “Knighton” area changed radically in the 1700s as the nearby discovery of coal and potter’s clay (“Bovey Beds”) led to industrial development and the farm at “Knighton” seems to have been overtaken by housing. It is not for nothing that the local pub was called the “Clay Cutters Arms.” How much, if any, benefit Thomas “of Pitt” derived from the sale of land is uncertain. However, Chudleigh Knighton, as the community came to be known, grew fast.
This (third) Thomas’s father, Thomas Pinsent “of Bovey Tracey,” who is discussed here, was buried in his original home parish of Hennock in 1696. If I am right, he predeceased his own father, the original Thomas Pinsent “of Slade,” by a few years. There is a monument to the latter in St. Mary’s Church in Hennock dated 1701.
Family Tree
Grandparents
Grandfather: Thomas Pinsent: 1597 – 1649
Grandmother: Julian Sidstone: xxxx – 1663
Parents
Father: Thomas Pinsent: 1633 – 1701
Mother: Julian Wilmeade: xxxx – xxxx
Father’s Siblings (Aunts, Uncles)
Helen Pinsent: 1618 – 1618
Joan Pinsent: 1619 – xxxx
Mary Pinsent: 1622 – xxxx
Robert Pinsent: 1624 – 1671
John Pinsent: 1626 – 1663
Julian Pinsent: 1628 – xxxx
Margaret Pinsent: 1630 – xxxx
Thomas Pinsent: 1633 – 1701 ✔️
William Pinsent: 1638 – xxxx
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