L. G. Pine

Editor

Pine began his career at Burke's Peerage Ltd, serving as assistant editor from 1935 to 1940. After the Second World War he returned as executive director from 1946 to 1960.^[3][2] During this period he oversaw and edited successive editions of Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage and Burke's Landed Gentry, the firm's principal genealogical and heraldic reference works.^[5]

In the early 1960s Pine served as managing director of Shooting Times, a British fieldsports magazine.^[6][7] Pine resigned from Shooting Times on ethical grounds, objecting to aspects of fieldsports culture that conflicted with his religious and ethical convictions.^[8]

He later became active in the Augustan Society, serving as a fellow, director, and member of its board of governors, and editing several of its genealogical and heraldic publications.^[3]

From 1975 to 1980 he undertook additional editorial work for the National Message, the journal of the British-Israel-World Federation. He was assistant editor from 1975 to 1977 and editor from 1977 to 1980, and served as chairman of its associated publisher, Covenant Publishing Co. Ltd, from 1978 to 1979.^[2]

Author

Pine wrote extensively on family history, the peerage, surname studies, heraldry, the monarchy of the United Kingdom, and British social traditions. Over the course of his career he produced more than thirty books and monographs, ranging from practical genealogical guides to interpretive studies of noble institutions, heraldic practice, and social hierarchy. Several of his works also offered commentary on class structure and inherited status.^[3][8]

Pine also contributed more than two thousand articles to newspapers and journals in Britain and the United States, including work for Encyclopædia Britannica, The Times, and The Washington Post.^[3][9]

Politics

Politically, Pine was initially associated with the Conservative Party. He was adopted as prospective parliamentary candidate for Bristol Central in 1956, contested the seat in the 1959 general election, and was re-adopted in 1960. He resigned his candidature in 1962 and joined the Liberal Party, becoming prospective Liberal candidate for South Croydon in 1963. He resigned that candidature in June 1964, later concluding that he had “ceased to find common ground with Liberalism”.^[2][3]

Religion

Pine was received into the Catholic Church in 1964, but was reconciled to the Church of England in 1971. He served as an Anglican lay reader in the dioceses of London (from 1939), Canterbury (from 1961), and St Edmundsbury and Ipswich (from 1975).^[10][2]

Pine upheld the Book of Common Prayer as the doctrinal and liturgical standard of the Church of England and criticised the modernising tendencies represented by the 1980 Alternative Service Book.^[10][2]

Animal welfare

In mid-life Pine revised his views on animal welfare, turning against blood sports after his work in fieldsports journalism. In his book After Their Blood (1966) he denounced hunting as cruelty incompatible with Christian duty, writing that “it is our duty as men and women of God's redeemed creation to try not to increase the suffering of the world, but to lessen it”.^[11][12]

Family, interests and death

In 1948 Pine married Grace Violet Griffin (20 August 1914 – 5 November 2019), daughter of Albert Griffin and Margaret Emily (née Stowers) of Chelmsford. Their only child, Richard Pine, was born in London on 21 August 1949.^[2][10]

In the 1980s he lived at Hall Lodge Cottage in Brettenham, near Ipswich, and belonged to the Press Club and the Wig and Pen Club, both long-established London clubs associated with journalists, writers and members of the legal profession. Pine listed his recreations as reading, walking, gardening, travel, motoring and writing.^[2]

Pine died in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, on 15 May 1987.^[10]

Edited volumes

Pine edited the following volumes for Burke's Peerage Ltd.

• Burke's Landed Gentry, 16th edition (1939)
• Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 99th edition (1949)
• Burke's Landed Gentry, 17th edition (1952)
• Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 100th edition (1953)
• Supplement to Burke's Landed Gentry (1954)
• Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 101st edition (1956)
• Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Ireland (1958)
• Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 102nd edition (1959)
• Burke's Distinguished Families of America (1939; 1947)
• The International Year Book and Statesmen's Who's Who (1953–1962)

Pine edited the following volumes for Shaw Publishing Company. Shaw was commercially linked to Burke's, sharing editorial staff.

• Author's & Writer's Who's Who & Reference Guide (1948)
• Who's Who in the Free Churches (1951)
• Who's Who in Music (1949)
• The Musicians' International Directory and Biographical Record (1949–1950)

Authored books and manuscripts

Unless noted, all published titles are listed in major library catalogues, including the British Library,^[13] the New York Public Library,^[16] and WorldCat.^[15]