{{Short description|18th/19th-century British writer and publisher}} {{For|the MP|William Pinnock (MP)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=July 2022}} {{Use British English|date=August 2012}}

'''William Pinnock''' (3 February 1782 in Alton, Hampshire{{snd}}21 October 1843 in London) was a British publisher and educational writer.

He was at first a schoolmaster, then a bookseller. In 1817 he went to London and, in partnership with Samuel Maunder, began to publish cheap educational works. The firm's first productions were a series of Catechisms, planned by Pinnock, consisting of short popular manuals, arranged in the form of question and answer, of the different departments of knowledge.<ref name=eb/> This style was later copied by Fanny Umphelby.<ref name="CarpenterPrichard1984">{{cite book|last1=Carpenter|first1=Humphrey|authorlink1=Humphrey Carpenter|last2=Prichard|first2=Mari|title=The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature|year=1984|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-211582-9|page=[https://archive.org/details/oxfordcompaniont00carp/page/115 115]|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/oxfordcompaniont00carp}}</ref> The dialogues were followed by abridged editions of Goldsmith's histories of England, Greece and Rome, and a series of county histories which were no less profitable. Pinnock lost nearly all his money in outside speculation.<ref name=eb>{{EB1911 |wstitle=Pinnock, William |volume=21 |page=628 |inline=1}}</ref>

Pinnock is mentioned, as a depressing set of texts, in contrast to Washington Irving's stories, in George Eliot's novel ''The Mill on the Floss'' (1860): Maggie, speaking about her 'gloomy fancy' to her cousin Lucy says:

''"Perhaps it comes from the school diet – watery rice-pudding spiced with Pinnock. Let us hope it will give way before my mother's custards and this charming Geoffrey Crayon."''

Pinnock's son, William Henry Pinnock (1813–1885), a clergyman, was the editor and author of several elementary textbooks and scriptural manuals, and of various works on ecclesiastical law and usage.<ref name=eb/>

== See also == * Pinnock's First Catechism for Children, 1837 on Archive.org<ref>{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/cihm_28737/page/n5/mode/2up?view=theater | isbn=978-0-665-28737-4 | title=Pinnock's first catechism for children &#91;microform&#93; : Containing such things as are necessary to be known at an early age | date=1837 }}</ref> * Samuel Maunder

==References== {{Reflist}}

==External links== * {{Gutenberg author | id=6684}} * {{Internet Archive author |sname=William Pinnock |birth=1782 |death=1843}} * Biography of William Pinnock at Wikisource

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Pinnock, William}} Category:1782 births Category:1843 deaths Category:British book publishers (people) Category:Book publishing companies of the United Kingdom Category:19th-century British businesspeople

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