Transcript

of

Walter Pring [Obituary]

Transactions of the Devonshire Association, vol.  XLIII, (1911), pp. 41-42.

by

W. Pengelly

Prepared by Michael Steer

The obituary was read at the Association’s July 1911 Dartmouth meeting. Mr Pring was born in Pitminster, Somerset in about 1831-2 to John Pring. WikiTree provides an informative record of that family. Walter Pring married Ann Abbot Carter and had five children. He was a partner in Norman and Pring, the owners of St Ann’s Well Brewery. It later merged with the City Brewery. He was by reputation a staunch Conservative, President of the Exeter Constitutional Club and the Exeter Conservative Working Men’s Society. He had also in 1880 served as Mayor of Exeter. An informative history of the Norman & Pring Brewery may be accessed at: the Exeter Memories website. The obituary, from a copy of a rare and much sought-after journal can be downloaded from the Internet Archive. Google has sponsored the digitisation of books from several libraries. These books, on which copyright has expired, are available for free educational and research use, both as individual books and as full collections to aid researchers.

Mr. Pring, of Northlands, Exeter, belonged to a West Somerset family, and came to Exeter about forty-five years ago to join Mr. John Norman, of Montpellier, as partner in the City Brewery. He was elected to the Exeter City Council in 1875, and was an Alderman of the city from 1878 to 1893; Mayor in 1880, and chairman of the Water Committee. He was appointed a magistrate by Lord Halsbury in 1885, and was one of the most regular members of the Bench. In all public work, as well as in philanthropic and charitable movements, he took an active part, and was also a keen politician. He joined the Devonshire Association in 1901. He had four sons, who survive, and one daughter, who predeceased him. He died at the age of seventy-nine on 21 December, 1910, and was buried in the family vault at St. David's, Exeter.