First World War Memorial, St Leonard’s Church, Sunningwell

David Hume PINSENT (1891–1918)

© Marlborough College

See also Richard Parker Pinsent, David’s younger brother, killed in 1915

David Hume Pinsent was born in Edgbaston in 1891, the eldest son of Hume Chancellor Pinsent (born in Devonport in 1857) and Ellen Frances Parker (born in Claxby, Lincolnshire in 1866). His father was a solicitor living at Edgbaston and his mother at Melford, Surrey when they were married at St John's Church at Melford on 26 July 1888. They had three children:

• David Hume Pinsent (born at Edgbaston, Warwickshire on 24 May 1891)
• Richard Parker Pinsent (born in Harborne, Staffordshire on 21 March 1894)
• Hester Agnes Pinsent (born in Harborne, Staffordshire in 1899, registered fourth quarter).

David was named after his ancestor, the philosopher David Hume.

At the time of the 1901 census the family was living at 16 Lordswood Road, Harborne, Staffordshire, and the family of five had the same number of servants (a cook, nurse, under nurse, parlourmaid, and housemaid). David was then nine years old, and his father was working as a solicitor.

 

In May 1905, when the family was living at Bennetts Hill, Birmingham, David entered Marlborough College (Boarding House C2, where the Housemaster was T. C. G. Sandford). He won the Senior Scholarship in 1907.

He left the school in March 1910.

Left: David Hume Pinsent in 1909, taken from his Sixth Form photograph
© Marlborough College

On 25 June 1910 David Hume Pinsent was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as an Entrance Scholar to read Mathematics : he was elected a Senior Scholar in the following year, and took a First in Part I of the Mathematical Tripos (when he also won the College Mathematics Prize).

The family was away from home at the time of the 1911 census: David’s mother was staying with her daughter in Eastbourne at the home of her stepsister, Miss Mary Murray Parker (63) and his brother Richard was boarding at school, but David himself and his father do not appear to be listed and may have been abroad.

From 1901 to 1908 David’s mother was the only woman member of the Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feebleminded, and from 1901 to 1913 she was chairman of the Birmingham Special Schools Sub-Committee.

In May 1912 David Pinsent first met Ludwig Wittgenstein (who was also at Trinity College, and two years older) when he enlisted as a subject for his rhythm in speech and music experiments in the Cambridge psychology library. They became close friends, and the following September they travelled to Iceland together, with all expenses paid by Wittgenstein’s father.

David Pinsent took a First with special distinction in Part II in 1913, the year he graduated.

Around the beginning of 1915 the Pinsent family had moved to Glenfield on Foxcombe Hill.

David Hume Pinsent was deemed unfit for military service in the First World War, and although he served by testing aircraft at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough, he does not officially count as “war dead” in the eyes of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

David was the co-pilot of a plane flown by Lieutenant L. F. D. Lutyens which broke into five parts in mid-air on 8 May 1918, and he died instantly at the age of 26 over Frimley in Surrey. Despite a search by 1,200 soldiers (including the dragging of the Basingstoke Canal and ponds in the vicinity), no trace of his body was found in the initial search, but it was found six days later floating in the canal between Frimley and Mytchett Bridges. The inquest could find no cause, and a verdict of accidental death was returned.

He was buried in the Victoria Road Cemetery at Farnborough, and the inscription on his grave marker (above) reads:

DAVID HUME PINSENT
ROYAL AIRCRAFT ESTABLISHMENT / FARNBOROUGH
KILLED WHILE FLYING FOR THE PURPOSE OF / RESEARCH IN AERODYNAMICS
MAY 8^TH. 1918 • AGED 26

WHOSOEVER THEN SHALL APPROACH ALL THINGS WITH THE
UNDERSTANDING ALONE, -- AND ENDEAVOUR BY THE USE OF
PURE REASON TO CATCH TRUTH IN ITS PURITY , -- IS NOT THIS
THE MAN, WHO, IF ANY, SHALL APPREHEND THE THING THAT IS?
                                                                                             PLATO — PHAEDO.

Wittgenstein was distraught to the point of being suicidal when he heard of Pinsent’s death, and three years later in 1922 dedicated his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus to him.

Despite not officially being classified as “war dead”, David Hume Pinsent is remembered on the war memorial in St Leonard’s Church at Sunningwell. In addition inside Wootton Church a brass plaque on the wall beneath the one dedicated to his brother reads:

ALSO OF HIS BROTHER
DAVID HUME PINSENT
ROYAL AIRCRAFT ESTABLISHMENT • FARNBOROUGH
KILLED WHILE FLYING FOR THE PURPOSE OF
RESEARCH IN AERODYNAMICS
MAY 8TH 1918 – AGED 26.
NEC PROPTER VITAM VIVENDI PERDERE CAUSAS

[The last line is from Juvenal and translates as: “No! not for life lose that for which I live”]

David Hume Pinsent’s father endowed an annual Mathematics Prize at Marlborough College in his memory (as well as a Chemistry Prize in memory of David’s brother).

Administration was granted to Pinsent’s father on 8 May 1916 and his effects amounted to £565 12s. 1d., with a further £94 14s 1d. released to his widow on 4 June 1918.