Rear Admiral Sir William Symonds Knt

Rear Admiral Sir William Symonds Knt
Title:Rear Admiral Sir
First name:William
Surname:Symonds
Post-nominals:Knt
Year elected:1828
Last year on list:1854
MembershipNaval
Sir William Symonds CB FRS (24 September 1782 – 30 March 1856, aboard the French steamship Nil, Strait of Bonifacio, Sardinia) was Surveyor of the Navy in the Royal Navy from 9 June 1832 to October 1847, and took part in the naval reforms instituted by the Whig First Lord of the Admiralty Sir James Robert George Graham in 1832.

Symonds was the second son of naval captain Thomas Symonds (1731–1792) and his second wife, and first went to sea on, HMS London, in September 1794. Serving in Lord Bridport's fleet at the Battle of Groix on 23 June 1795 and during the 1797 Spithead mutiny, he was promoted to lieutenant on 14 October 1801. However, despite service at sea for the whole duration of the Napoleonic Wars (in which experiences of being outsailed by French ships left him with an obsession for speed, wide beams and sharp design in his later designs for sailing ships) and showing fine seamanship, he was promoted no further (though between 1819 and 1825 he was captain of the port at Malta).

Despite his fall from grace, he was granted an Order of the Bath (civil) on 1 May 1848, and in June 1853 James Graham, having again become First Sea Lord, was convinced by the Duke of Portland to take Symonds back on, as the Queen's naval Aide-de-Camp. Becoming a retired rear admiral the following year, he and his third wife from then on lived abroad, principally in Malta and Italy, for reasons of his health. He died at sea in 1856, en route from Malta to Marseilles, and was buried at the Protestant Cemetery at the latter. His will required the publication of a biography in his favour – this repeated the arguments over his sailing-ship designs despite the Navy's having long abandoned sail by this date.

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