Sir William Symonds

William Symonds
Sir William Symonds, by Edward Morton, 1850 (after Henry Wyndham Phillips)
Born	24 September 1782 Bury St Edmunds
Died	30 March 1856 (1856-03-31) (aged 73) Aboard the French steamship Nil in the Strait of Bonifacio, off Sardinia
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	Royal Navy
Years of service	1794–1856
Rank	Rear admiral (rank granted on retirement)
Battles/wars	Groix
Awards	FRS, knighthood, civil Companion of the Bath
Relations	Thomas Symonds (father) Mary Anne Whitby (sister) Thomas Symonds (son) William Cornwallis Symonds (son) Jermyn Symonds (son)
Other work	Surveyor of the Navy

Sir William Symonds CB FRS (24 September 1782, Bury St Edmunds – 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.

He was the second son of a 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).

Using a minor legacy from Admiral Sir William Cornwallis (who left his estate to his best friend's widow, Symonds' sister), in 1821 Symonds built an experimental yacht, which was copied by the rich yachtsman George Vernon, who aided his publication of a pamphlet on naval architecture. Vernon also convinced the Admiralty to employ Symonds as a corvette designer, with promotion to commander, by standing his surety with a bond of £20,000 should Symonds fail in his designs, and by then introducing him to the Duke of Portland in December 1826. Of his two yacht designs for the Duke, one (Pantaloon, 1832) was later bought by the Admiralty for adaptation as a 10 gun brig. When Portland entered George Canning's Cabinet in April 1827, he then promoted Symonds as a designer to the Lord High Admiral, the Duke of Clarence, who appointed Symonds to the royal yacht and granted him his captaincy on 5 December the same year. Sailing trials in 1827 and 1831 were won by Symonds' entries, and (with Clarence's accession as William IV, the Whig abolition of the Navy Board and Earl Grey's ministry) he was taken on to design a 50 gun frigate, which he named HMS Vernon after his patron.