Thomas Symonds (Royal Navy Officer, Died 1792)
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Captain Thomas Symonds (bapt. 10 August 1731 –1792) was a British naval captain of the
American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...
. Symonds was the second son of the Rev John Symonds, rector of
Horringer Horringer, formerly also called Horningsheath, is a village and civil parish in the West Suffolk district of Suffolk in eastern England. It lies on the A143 about two miles south-west of Bury St Edmunds. The population in 2011 was 1055. Herit ...
, Suffolk, and his wife, Mary Spring (died 1774), daughter of Sir Thomas Spring of Pakenham and Hon. Merelina Jermyn, daughter of Thomas Jermyn. His elder brother was academic
John Symonds John Symonds (12 March 1914 – 21 October 2006) was an English writer known for his biographies of Aleister Crowley, as well as novels, plays, and children's books. His literary career spanned several decades, covering a wide range of genres ...
(1730–1807). According to Sir William Symonds' memoirs, the boys learned young that John, as the eldest son, would inherit the family estates:
" ohn and Thomaswere informed that all the property would be left to John, the eldest; and Tom was cautioned by his mother not to hang upon his brother. Being a very spirited boy, he took this injunction so much to heart that he left the house immediately, with his clothes tied in a bundle over his shoulder, and keeping his intentions to himself, trudged off to Harwich, where he was invited to try his luck at sea, by the captain of a vessel of war, who had been staying with his father. He was not heard of again until he had become a Master and Commander in the Navy, when he paid a short visit to his brother."
He entered the Royal Navy as a Lieutenant on 22 May 1755 and served on the ''Elizabeth'', the ''Grafton'' and the ''Borwick'' (Pitcairn-Jones Naval List). On 18 February 1762, he was appointed Commander of the sloop ''Albany'' and was ordered to join Commodore Young's squadron then blockading the estuaries of the rivers
Seine The Seine ( , ) is a river in northern France. Its drainage basin is in the Paris Basin (a geological relative lowland) covering most of northern France. It rises at Source-Seine, northwest of Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plat ...
and
Orne Orne (; or ) is a département in the northwest of France, named after the river Orne. It had a population of 279,942 in 2019.Fort Moultrie Fort Moultrie is a series of fortifications on Sullivan's Island, South Carolina, built to protect the city of Charleston, South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina. The first fort, formerly named Fort Sullivan, built of Cabbage Pal ...
overlooking Charleston Harbour. In 1780, in England, he replaced John Luttrell as captain of , and sailed for America with a naval force. On 13 August 1780 the ''Charon'' accepted after a lengthy engagement the surrender of the ''Comte d'Artois'', a French privateer off the Irish coast. After successful anti-convoy operations on the Atlantic crossing and coastal cruising, the ship became trapped in the York River, Virginia, where Symonds took supreme command of British naval forces in America. ''Charon'' was destroyed and sunk with red-hot shot soon afterwards. At the end of the
siege of Yorktown The siege of Yorktown, also known as the Battle of Yorktown and the surrender at Yorktown, was the final battle of the American Revolutionary War. It was won decisively by the Continental Army, led by George Washington, with support from the Ma ...
, it was he (as the most senior naval officer present) and
Charles Cornwallis Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis (31 December 1738 – 5 October 1805) was a British Army officer, Whig politician and colonial administrator. In the United States and United Kingdom, he is best known as one of the leading Britis ...
, Lieutenant General of the British Armed Forces, who signed the Articles of Capitulation on 18 October 1781. After his release as a prisoner of war he was appointed Captain of the ''Diadem''. Thomas Symonds died in his brother's house in Bury St Edmunds on 25 May 1792. He is buried in Pakenham Church where there is a mural tablet to his memory and to that of his son, Jermyn John, Commander RN who was the commander of the ''Helena'', a sloop of 14 guns which was lost with him and all his crew in a gale off the Dutch coast in October 1796 (some authorities put the loss as 3 November 1796). Thomas Symonds married twice, first to Mary Noble who died in 1777 and who is buried in St James's church in Bury, secondly to Elizabeth Mallet. In his Will, proved 15 June 1792, Thomas Symonds left bequests to his wife Elizabeth, to his sons Jermyn John, Thomas Edward, and John Charles and to his daughters, Mary Anne, Elizabeth, Juliana, Merelina, and Sophia(Public Record Office Probate 11, 1220, I-E 353). His daughter was Mary Anne Whitby, his son was
William Symonds Sir William Symonds CB FRS (24 September 1782 – 30 March 1856, aboard the French steamship ''Nil'', Strait of Bonifacio, Sardinia)Surveyor of the Navy The Surveyor of the Navy, originally known as Surveyor and Rigger of the Navy, held overall responsibility for the design of British warships from 1745. He was a principal commissioner and member of the Navy Board from the inauguration of tha ...
, and his grandsons included
William Cornwallis Symonds Captain William Cornwallis Symonds (1 August 1810 – 23 November 1841) was a British Army officer who was prominent in the early colonisation of New Zealand. Biography Symonds was born at Lymington, Hampshire in 1810, the eldest son of W ...
, Thomas Symonds, Julian Symonds, and
Jermyn Symonds Captain John Jermyn Symonds (4 January 1816 – 3 January 1883) was a 19th-century Member of Parliament in Auckland, New Zealand. He purchased land for the New Zealand Company and was later a judge of the Native Land Court. Biography Symonds w ...
.


References


External links


The Avalon Project at Yale Law SchoolBetween Slavery and Freedom: Virginia Blacks in the American Revolution, by Sylvia R. Frey
The Journal of Southern History, 1983, Southern Historical Association
Rhode Island in British Strategy, 1780-1781, by William B. Willcox
The
Journal of Modern History ''The Journal of Modern History'' is a quarterly Peer review, peer-reviewed academic journal covering European intellectual, political, and cultural history, published by the University of Chicago Press. Established in 1929, the journal covers even ...
, 1945, The University of Chicago Press {{DEFAULTSORT:Symonds, Thomas Royal Navy personnel of the American Revolutionary War 1731 births 1793 deaths
Thomas Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the A ...