Sir William Pynsent, 1st Baronet
English politician
Sir William Pynsent or Pinsent, 1st Baronet (1642–1719), of Urchfont, Wiltshire, was an English landowner and politician who sat in the House of Commons in 1689.
Pynsent was baptised on 10 August 1642, the only son of William Pinsent, Merchant Taylor, of Watling Street, London and his wife Anne Lancelot, daughter of William Lancelot, Mercer, of St Olave, Hart Street, London. His father died in 1643 and he inherited his estate. He matriculated at Oriel College, Oxford in 1655 and was admitted at Lincoln's Inn in 1667. He married by licence dated 4 July 1676, Patience Bond, daughter of John Bond of London. In 1678 he purchased an estate at Urchfont, where he built a house, four miles from Devizes. He was created baronet on 13 September 1687.
Pynsent, a dissenter, was recommended for the Commission of the Peace for Wiltshire in 1688, serving as JP until his death. At the 1689 general election he was returned on the corporation interest as Member of Parliament (MP) for Devizes. He played little part in the Convention Parliament and did not stand for Parliament again.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16845698. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1642, 1719, 1689 and 1643.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sir William Pynsent, 1st Baronet” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.