Elizabeth Maria Symonds and my other Symonds ancestors

Elizabeth Maria Symonds (1826-1911).
My 3rd great-grandmother.

Elizabeth Maria Symonds was born in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, in 1826 and baptised in St Nicholas’s Church on 24 November that year. Her parents were fisherman Charles Robinson Witchingham Symonds and Susanna Waters (see below).

Elizabeth married mariner William Mark Green, a Yarmouth native, at St Nicholas’s on 29 September 1846. He became a fish curer and the family lived in various parts of the country – their daughter (and my second great-grandmother) Sarah Ann Elizabeth was born in Birmingham, Warwickshire, in 1849, and the 1851 census recorded the family in Camberwell, London. By 1853 they were back in Great Yarmouth but Elizabeth was widowed young as William died in the Workhouse in Great Yarmouth on 27 January 1854, the death certificate recording the cause as cerebral disease. Read more about William and Elizabeth’s family here. 

After her first husband’s death Elizabeth married widower and basket maker Robert William Abel, who was born in Norwich, on 13 September 1855 at St Andrew’s Church in Gorleston. The couple had a second family while living at West Bermondsey Place and Ordnance Road in Great Yarmouth but Elizabeth also worked as a beatster, who was someone who mended fishing nets. She wasn’t living with Robert at the time of the 1891 census – he was a boarder at a house in Stanley Road, Fulham, London, and she was living at home in Ordnance Road. A family was lodging with her. Perhaps they’d separated.

Robert died in 1892, the event registered that year in Fulham. In 1901, widow Elizabeth was living in Ordnance Road on her own income. She was staying with her son Benjamin at 115 Lichfield Road, Great Yarmouth, at the time of the 1911 census and his grandson Leslie remembered her sitting in the front room watching cattle being driven down the street on the way to the nearby market. She died a few months later, the death registered in West Ham, London, the district where her daughter Mary Anne was living with her family.

For Elizabeth’s children with William Mark Green, see here. She had more children with Robert Abel but most died in infancy:

• Charles Henry Green Abel (1856-1857), my 2nd great-grand uncle. Charles was born on 7 May 1856 but died an infant. He was buried on 3 December 1857 in Great Yarmouth.
• Emmeline Lasthenia Abel (1858-1889), my 2nd great-grand aunt. Emmeline was born on 21 May 1858 and baptised at St Nicholas’s on 1 August that year. The 1881 census showed her visiting family in West Ham, London, with her occupation given as dressmaker. She died young in 1889, buried at Newham in east London on 1 May.
• Helen Maria Abel (1862-1862), my 2nd great-grand aunt. Helen was born on 5 March 1862 and baptised at St Nicholas’s on 2 May. She was buried locally on 10 June 1862.
• Charles Arthur Abel (1863-1863), my 2nd great-grand uncle. Charles was born on 24 May 1863 and baptised on 1 June. He died a few days later and was buried on 10 June.
• Arthur Robert Abel (1863-1868), my 2nd great-grand uncle. He was Charles’ twin brother, born on 24 May 1863 and baptised on 1 June in Great Yarmouth. He died in 1868 and was buried on 5 November.
• Helen Maria Abel (1867-1886), my 2nd great-grand aunt and the second of the couple’s children to bear the name. Helen was born on 16 May 1867 and baptised at St Nicholas’s ion 16 June. She was sometimes referred to as Ellen in the records. She died in 1886 and was buried on 4 May.

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Charles Robinson Witchingham Symonds (1798-1888) and Susanna Waters (1801-1865).
My 4th great-grandparents.

Charles was born on 16 July 1798 and baptised at Holy Trinity & All Saints Church in Winterton, several miles north of Great Yarmouth in Norfolk. His parents were James Symonds and Frances Ann Witchingham (see below). His middle names, a reference to his ancestors, may have been an affectation as there is no evidence that he was baptised with them.

Charles married Susanna Waters on 2 December 1819 at St Nicholas’s Church in Great Yarmouth. She’d been born in 1801 and baptised on 26 November that year in Kings Lynn, in the far north-west of Norfolk. What had brought her to the coastal town of Yarmouth is unknown but they settled and brought up their family there, the baptism records of the children variously referring to Charles as a sailor, mariner and fisherman. It’s possible that he was one of the shareholders of a boat called the Royal Victoria, built in Yarmouth in 1835. They were all beachmen who were part of the Denny’s company, and among them was a Lawrence Symonds who must’ve been Charles’s brother (see below). David Higgins’ book on The Beachmen noted that the boat was a yawl in service until 1870. Beachmen carried out various tasks including saving lives at sea, salvage work, ferrying goods to shore and tourist boat trips.

The 1851 and 1861 censuses showed Charles’s family living on Lancaster Road in Yarmouth. Susanna died in August 1865 and was buried on the 23rd. At the time she was living at the Fishermen’s Hospital in Yarmouth, almshouses for what were called ‘decayed fishermen’ that had been built in 1702 by the Corporation of Great Yarmouth to provide a home for 20 poor fishermen and their wives aged over 60 who couldn’t provide for themselves. Clearly Charles must’ve moved into one of the cottages in the early 1860s and he was still there at the time of the 1871 census. However, by that time he’d remarried. His bride was widow Sarah Tulford Harmer (nee Fleet), who came from the town and was born and baptised in 1807. The ceremony was held on 14 January 1866 – just months after his first wife’s death. The marriage certificate featured the extended version of his name, Charles Robinson Witchingham Symonds.

The 1881 census listed Charles living in the town’s Rows but his wife’s name was given as Elizabeth. I suspect this is an error rather than a third wife! Sarah died in 1885, her address given as Row 31. She was buried in the town on 16 February. I believe Charles died in 1888 but the death record gave his middle name as James, which again looks like an error. He died at Ordnance Road, perhaps while staying with his granddaughter Sarah, and was buried on 16 June.

Charles and Susanna’s children were:

• Elizabeth Maria Symonds (1826-1911), my 3rd great-grandmother. Her details are further up this page.
• William Robert Symonds (1829-1865), my 3rd great-grand uncle. William was baptised on 31 August 1829 at St Nicholas’s Church in Great Yarmouth and worked as a fisherman. His 1849 Merchant Seaman record revealed that he first went to sea as a boy in 1840 and described him as 5ft 6ins tall, with blond hair and blue eyes. He married Elizabeth Hughes, who was born in Liverpool, Lancashire, in about 1835, in a non-conformist Unitarian ceremony held on 5 April 1852 at the New Meeting House in Gaol Street, Great Yarmouth. The couple had a daughter and were living at St Peter’s Terrace in Yarmouth at the time of the 1861 census. William died in 1865 and was buried in the town on 25 July. His widow married Yarmouth beachman Samuel Martin Hood in 1867 and died in Yarmouth in 1892. Their daughter was:
  • Elizabeth Symonds (1853-????). Born in Great Yarmouth, she married cabman Charles Batley there in 1875 and raised a large family.
• Alfred John Symonds (1831-1832), 3rd great-grand uncle. Alfred was baptised on 23 March 1831 at St Nicholas’s Church in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, and was buried on 2 August 1832.
• Susannah Symonds (1832-1906), my 3rd great-grand aunt. Susannah was baptised on 8 October 1832 at St Nicholas’s Church in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. She was still living at home at the time of the 1851 census and was working as a beatster, one of the numerous women who mended fishing nets in the town. A few months later – on 10 July – she married fisherman’s son Henry George Martins, who’d been baptised in Yarmouth on 24 November 1828 to parents Robert Martins (sometimes Martin) and his wife Sarah. They raised a family and Henry worked at sea, with records showing him from 1854 as the Master of the Blue Belle, a lugger or small sailing ship built locally in 1846 and owned by the Yarmouth-based Shuckford family. Henry’s father Robert had been her previous master. Henry died young and was buried on 3 January 1858. The census of 1861 showed Susannah as a lodging house keeper living with her children in Havelock Road, Great Yarmouth, but she was doing well enough to have a domestic servant to help her. On 20 February 1877 she married bachelor and master mariner Charles Downing at St Peter Mancroft Church in Norwich. Born in Great Yarmouth in 1823 or 1824, Charles was in a relationship with Susannah long before their marriage because the 1871 census listed her as Susannah Downing, wife of a seaman. Charles must’ve been at sea on the night of the census but they were clearly living as man and wife. Susannah had a number of children during the 1860s and 1870s, several of whom were baptised only after the wedding in 1877. It’s likely that Charles was their father – they took his surname – but it’s impossible to prove. In 1881 the family was living in Havelock Road, Charles listed as a master mariner and Susannah as a lodging house keeper. He died in 1883 and was buried in Great Yarmouth on 22 August. Susannah continued to live in Havelock Road until her death there at number 111 on 27 November 1906. She was buried in the town on 1 December. She left effects worth £238. Susannah’s children were:
  • Susannah Martins (1852-1919). Born in Great Yarmouth, Susannah married bricklayer Timothy Stackard of Seething in Norfolk in 1870. They moved to south London, lived in and around Lambeth and Southwark and had several children. Susannah was buried in Southwark in March 1919. Timothy died in 1937.
  • Henry George Martins (1854-1877) went to sea as a young man and was working as a cabin boy out of Yarmouth by 1871. In 1874 he married Sarah Jane Stevens and had a son but he was lost at sea along with his crew when his ship the Contest went down off the Heligoland coast in January 1877. She married again in 1881.
  • Caroline Martins (1855-1938). Born in Great Yarmouth, Caroline married Yarmouth-born sail maker James Edward Stevens – her brother-in-law – in 1877. They raised a family but moved around, perhaps wherever work was available. Census records showed them in Gorleston and Leigh on Sea, Essex. James died in 1930, Caroline eight years later.
  • Robert Charles Martins (1857-1880). Robert went to sea and married Yarmouth native Maria Moughton in 1877. They had a daughter but he died young. The Norfolk News of 11 December 1880 reported that he was ship’s mate on board the fishing smack Mystery, which was one of six vessels that sank during gales on the night of 29 October 1880.
  • Charles George Martins / Downing (1862-????) was born in Great Yarmouth and went on to work as an engineer. He married Agnes Annie Hart in the town in 1888 and they had children together but she died in 1911. He married Sarah Caroline Read in 1913. The Leicester Evening Mail of 13 October 1936 reported his death in the city and noted that he’d moved there the previous June. It also said that he’d been an innkeeper and, indeed, the 1921 census recorded the family at the Falgate Inn, Potter Heigham, Norfolk. Sarah died in Leicester in 1968.
  • Melissa Martins / Downing (1864-1945) was Susannah’s first daughter with her second partner. She was baptised as illegitimate in Yarmouth in 1867 and was working as an outfitter’s machinist by the 1891 census. She married Singer sewing machine salesman Charles William Newman in 1904 and had several children. They settled in Fulham, now in London. He died in 1936. Melissa spent her last years with her daughter Gladys’ family and died in Wembley in 1945.
  • Arthur William Downing (1870-1937). Arthur worked as a baker but in 1890 began service as a driver with the Royal Field Artillery. He spent much of the following decade in India and then went to South Africa to serve in the Boer War. It was between these engagements, in 1898, that he married Maria Coates of Ryburgh in Norfolk and began raising a family. He also served in the First World War but it appears that he was on the home front at the Royal Garrison Artillery depot in Great Yarmouth, which managed such things as the training of new recruits. Outside of the military he worked as a stoker at a silk manufacturer. Arthur died in his 60s but Maria lived until 1967.
  • Alice Maud Downing (1872-1892). The Yarmouth Independent of 5 November 1892 reported her death at Earlswood Asylum, Reigate, Surrey.
  • Edith Emma Downing (1874-1949) married Henry Charles Brake in Kensington and Chelsea in 1899. He was born locally and worked as a clerk. They had had four children by the 1911 census, when the couple were living in Wimbledon, but all had died. A later son, Jack, survived. The Luton News of 30 October 1919 reported the transfer of licence for the Nag’s Head pub in Toddington, Bedfordshire, from Henry to Edith on his death, so the couple had at some point left the city for a new life in Bedfordshire. London Workhouse records from Camden / St Pancras noted that Henry had been admitted but had been discharged on 23 January 1919 to Hanwell. A notation on the document suggests he was mentally ill – and Hanwell was the location of the St Bernard’s Hospital asylum. He actually died on 1 October that year at University College Hospital. Edith died in 1949 while living back in Wimbledon.
• Samuel Symonds (1836-1909), my 3rd great grand uncle. Samuel was baptised in 1836 and during his life saved many from death.
• Frederick Symonds (1839-1840), my 3rd great grand uncle. Frederick was baptised on 6 November at St Nicholas’s Church in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, but died a year later and was buried on 10 November 1840.
• Harriet Symonds (1841-1899), my 3rd great grand aunt. Harriet was born on 29 August 1841 in Great Yarmouth but lived a troubled life and died from drink.
• Clement Waters Symonds (1844-1933), my 3rd great grand uncle. Clement was baptised on 22 March 1844 at St Nicholas’s Church in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. By the time of the 1861 census, when he was 17 years old, he was already working as a mariner. He married Elizabeth Wright (born in 1847 in Yarmouth) on 12 September 1870 at the church, his job now a beachman. By 1871 the couple were living in St Peter’s Square in Great Yarmouth and had begun raising a family, but most of their children died very young. The 1881 census showed them living in Foxes Buildings, the 1891 version in Foxes Passage – more than likely the same properties situated off York Road. Elizabeth, however, had died in 1887 (buried on 27 August that year) and Clement went on to remarry. His bride on 25 September 1897 was Rebecca Alpe (nee Suffling) and they married at St Luke’s Church in Hackney, East London, close to her place of birth in Stepney. The 1901 and 1911 censuses showed the couple living in Rodney Road, Great Yarmouth, with several children from their previous marriages. Clement continued to work as a beachman but the Yarmouth Mercury of 10 February 1912 reported a setback when the property in Foxes Passage that he used for storage was gutted in a fire during a fierce nighttime blizzard. Clement died in March 1933, his address at the time given as 28 Russell Road, Great Yarmouth. His funeral was held on 1 April. Rebecca died there in 1937 and was buried on 9 October. Clement and Elizabeth’s children were:
  • Charles Benjamin Symonds (1871-1871).
  • Charles Clement Edward Symonds (1873-1876).
  • Edward Clement Symonds (1875-1876).
  • Charles Clement Symonds (1878-1934). Charles worked for the Great Eastern Railway, mostly as a porter, and spent most of his life living in Great Yarmouth. However, he also spent time in Essex, where he married Minnie Mary Adams in 1912. They had a daugther. Charles died in 1934, Minnie in 1966.
  • Clement Symonds (1880-1905) began work as a labourer in Great Yarmouth but then became a fisherman. He drowned while a seaman on the Alpha off Tyneside on 25 August 1905 but was buried back in Gorleston, Norfolk. The Norwich Mercury of 16 September 1905 reported that Clement had gone ashore when the Alpha was moored in the River Tyne one evening but had failed to return. His body was later picked up from the river.
  • William Edward Symonds (1883-1962) moved to Newmarket in Cambridgeshire – the home of horseracing – to work as a groom and stableman. He married local girl Edith Gough in 1905 and had children. He died in Newmarket in 1962, Edith in 1967.
  • Henry Grimwood Symonds (1897-1898). Clement Snr had one child with his second wife Rebecca but Henry died as a baby.
• Henry John Symonds (1847-1851), my 3rd great grand uncle. Born in 1844 in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, he was buried on 27 April 1851.

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James Symonds (1766-1855) and Frances Ann Witchingham (1776-1847).
My 5th great-grandparents.

James Symonds was born in 1766 and baptised on 7 September that year at Holy Trinity & All Saints Church in the coastal village of Winterton, Norfolk. His parents were Charles Symonds and Ann Fuller (see below). His siblings were baptised there or in Great Yarmouth, about nine miles to the south.

James married Frances Ann Witchingham on 23 February 1790 in Winterton. She’d been baptised at St Swithun’s Church, Norwich, Norfolk, on 23 November 1773 and the marriage licence noted her age as 17 at the time she wed. Her father Lawrence, a Norwich baker who was married to Mary Ann Robinson, signed the licence alongside James. Frances had her first child three months later.

Records for the couple are sparse. The 1841 census showed James living at the Fishermen’s Hospital almshouses in Great Yarmouth with Frances, his occupation listed as beachman. He was there as a widower in 1851, this time described as a pauper fisherman. Frances died on 25 December 1847, the cause given as old age, and was buried on 30 December. James died on 13 February at the almshouses and was buried on the 19th. He died from what was then called paralysis, which could’ve been a stroke.

James and Frances had many children:

• Mary Ann (or Marian) Symonds (1791-1867), my 4th great-grand aunt. Mary Ann was born just a few months after her parents’ marriage and baptised at Holy Trinity & All Saints Church in Winterton, Norfolk, on 20 February 1791. The spelling of her forename varied over the years. She married Ralph Newby at St Margaret’s Church in Lowestoft, Suffolk, on 27 December 1812. He came from Martham in Norfolk and while a baptism record has not been found, other documents point to his birth being between 1888 and 1893. Ralph was also a widower. His first marriage, to Lydia George, took place at Holy Trinity & All Saints Church in Winterton on 3 April 1810 but I’ve found no death record for her. There’s some confusion over Ralph’s working life too. A merchant seaman record dated 1845 in Great Yarmouth stated that he first went to sea in 1818 and was born on 25 December 1794, as well as the fact that he had dark brown hair, brown eyes and stood 5ft 9ins tall. However, the 1851 census recorded him as a wheelwright living in Row 130 in Yarmouth with his family. The 1861 census described him as a fisherman and by this point he was living in the Fishermen’s Hospital almshouses in the town with his wife. In 1871 he was still living there but as a wheelwright. My suspicion is that Ralph worked at sea but supplemented his income when not by making or repairing wheels. It’s likely that he was the Ralph Newby who, with his son Robert and various others, was sentenced to six months hard labour for smuggling tobacco. The Lynn Advertiser of 30 October 1847 reported that they were on board the vessel Nancy heading towards Lowestoft when it was boarded by crew of the revenue cruiser Royal Charlotte. They found 3.5 tons of tobacco, which was described by the paper as one of the largest seizures made in a long time. All of the men pleaded guilty. Mary Ann died an horrifically painful death from scalding in February 1867 and the Norfolk Chronicle of 2 March 1867 reported on the inquest. Held at the Coachmaker’s Arms, it heard that Mary Ann was a long-time resident of the Fishermen’s Hospital almshouses and was in good health, if a nervous woman. On the Friday in question, another resident had opened her door suddenly and in fright Mary Ann had fallen against the fireplace. In the process she’d knocked a pan of boiling water over herself, which caused severe scalding from her neck down to the back of her knees. She died the following morning as a result of her injuries. The death was recorded as accidental and Mary Ann was buried in Great Yarmouth on 26 February. Ralph died in 1881 and was buried on 25 January, his address given as Row 97, Great Yarmouth. The couple had a number of children:
  • Mary Ann Witchingham Newby (1813-1899) was born in Winterton and married sailor John Brown Bristow in 1837. They had children but he died young in 1847. She never remarried and later worked as a beatster and nurse maid in Great Yarmouth.
  • James Newby (1815-????) was also born in Winterton but it’s possible that he was the seaman James Newby sentenced at the Great Yarmouth Sessions on 2 September 1835 to seven years transportation to Australia for stealing shoes. Documents revealed he’d been sentenced in 1833 to a year in gaol for another larceny offence. He arrived in New South Wales in 1836 on board the Susan and received his Certificate of Freedom on 30 March 1843. I’ve not traced him further.
  • Jane Elizabeth Newby (1817-????) was born in Great Yarmouth, usually went by the name Elizabeth and married John Turner in 1843. He was a cooper and his work took the family to Kent. Later they moved back to Norfolk and settled in Norwich. He died in 1902.
  • Robert Green Newby (1826-????) was also born in Great Yarmouth and married Eliza Bowles there in 1843. They had a family and he worked as a fisherman. The 1881 census showed him living in Hull, Yorkshire, claiming to be a widower and Eliza as a widow back in Yarmouth. Perhaps they had separated…
  • Ann Symonds Newby (1831-????) married fisherman James Bland and lived in Yarmouth.
  • Edward Newby (1837-????). I’ve found no records in which I have confidence.
• Frances Symonds (1792-1865), my 4th great-grand aunt. Frances was born on 30 September 1792 and baptised on the same day at Holy Trinity & All Saints Church in Winterton, Norfolk. She married Robert Green – my 4th great-grand uncle from a different branch of my family.
• James Symonds (1794-1813), my 4th great-grand uncle. James was born on 8 September 1794 and baptised on the 10th at Holy Trinity & All Saints Church in Winterton, Norfolk. He was buried there on 2 February 1813.
• John Witchingham Symonds (1796-1885), my 4th great-grand uncle. John was born on 10 June 1796 and baptised on the 13th at Holy Trinity & All Saints Church in Winterton, Norfolk. He married Maria Cann on 3 April 1815 at St Margaret’s in Lowestoft, just over the border in Suffolk, and raised a family with her. She came from the village of Thiberton in Suffolk and was born in around 1795. There were several John Symonds living in Great Yarmouth in the 19th century, making it difficult to pin down my ancestor, but he was listed as a mariner in the 1851 census, when he and Maria were living in Victoria Place. The Norfolk Chronicle of 19 December 1840 had reported on a beachman John Symonds who earned a vote of thanks, along with others, for helping to save lives in a shipwreck but the Norwich Mercury of 15 March 1842 noted that a John Simonds had been found not guilty of stealing rope from a barque in Yarmouth. Could either or both have been our John Symonds? His wife Maria died in 1851 and was buried in Yarmouth on 13 May. John apparently remarried as the census records of 1861 and 1871 show that he was living in the Fishermen’s Hospital almshouses in Yarmouth with Hannah, who died in September 1873. However, I’ve found no marriage records that fit. John died in the workhouse infirmary in 1885 and was buried locally on 19 August. Maria and John had several children:
  • John Witchingham Symonds (1818-1821)
  • Sarah Ann Symonds (1824-1888), who married Yarmouth ropemaker Samuel Carter before moving to Gillingham in Kent for work and to raise a family. He died in 1878 and she passed away in an asylum in Kent in 1888.
  • Robert John Symonds (1825-1885) married Emma Hughes in Hampshire in 1848 and became a boat builder and smack owner back in Yarmouth, according to the 1861 census. However, the 22 October 1864 edition of the Norfolk Chronicle reported his bankruptcy. By 1868 he had been forced to take a position as an ordinary seaman and the Norfolk News of 24 October 1868 noted he had been imprisoned for six months for stealing biscuit and cash from one of the vessels he was working on. By the 1871 census, Emma was living with her parents and the Yarmouth Independent of 22 April 1871 reported a case in which it was stated that Robert had left her for another woman and hadn’t been paying her maintenance. Emma died in 1877 and Robert remarried in 1878. His new bride was widow Susannah Burrage nee Brooks of Lound in Suffolk. He died in 1885, Susannah in 1896.
• Charles Robinson Witchingham Symonds (1798-1888), my 4th great-grandfather. See above for details.
• Ann Symonds (1800-????), my 4th great-grand aunt. Ann was born on 25 August 1800 and baptised the day after at Holy Trinity & All Saints Church in Winterton, Norfolk. I’ve had no luck tracking her down.
• Matilda Symonds (1802-1865), my 4th great-grand aunt. Matilda was born on 22 October 1802 and baptised on the 23rd at Holy Trinity & All Saints Church in Winterton, Norfolk. She married silk / hand loom weaver Francis Wright on 28 July 1827 at Gorleston, over the border in Suffolk. By 1851 they were living at 4 St Johns Place, Great Yarmouth, with their son Francis Jnr. Matilda died in 1865, her address given as Row 117 in Yarmouth, and was buried on 19 November. Francis’s fate is unclear. Their children were:
  • Francis Jacob Wright (1829-1866), a labourer.
  • Sarah Ann Wright (1827-1828).
• Lawrence Witchingham Symonds (1804-1847), my 4th great-grand uncle. He drowned in Great Yarmouth.
• Elizabeth Symonds (1808-1881), my 4th great-grand aunt. Elizabeth was born on 14 August 1808 and baptised two days later at Holy Trinity & All Saints Church in Winterton, Norfolk. She married John Goulding / Goulden Julier on 8 March 1831 at St Nicholas’s Church in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. He became a master mariner and was listed on occasions (including an 1845 town directory) as the master of a pilot cutter. In the 1851 census they were living at Swan’s Buildings in Yarmouth but by 1861 they had moved to 2 Alfred Terrace, where they would remain for much of their lives. At this point John was listed as a beachman. In 1871 they had several lodgers and a servant, suggesting they were doing reasonably well. John died on 4 March 1881 and was buried in Great Yarmouth on the 10th. Elizabeth, who was listed as a lodging house keeper in that year’s census, died just months later on 4 December 1881 and was buried on the 8th. She left effects worth £324. I’ve not been able to find any children born to the couple.
• Edmund Robinson Symonds (1810-????), my 4th great-grand uncle. Edmund was born on 17 December 1810 and baptised on the 23rd at Holy Trinity & All Saints Church in Winterton, Norfolk. He was mentioned in a poll book for 1832 in Great Yarmouth, described as a beachman. He married Rebecca Barber Smith (who was baptised in Great Yarmouth on 29 January 1812) at Gorleston in Suffolk on 3 May 1829. The 1841 census showed them living in Black’s Buildings in Yarmouth, Edmund listed as a sailor. Although I’ve yet to find a death record, he must’ve died in the next few years as Rebecca was a widow by the 1851 census and bringing up their children on her own. She died in 1904. Their children were:
  • Frances Symonds (1830-1920) married fish merchant John William Henry Beckett, who was born in Rotherhithe, London, and lived in Great Yarmouth, raising a family. John died a year after Frances in 1905.
  • James Robinson Symonds (1833-1887) married Hannah Lanwood / Larwood / Lambert in 1853, raised a family in Yarmouth and worked as a fisherman. He died in 1887, Hannah in 1895.
  • Edmund Robinson Symonds (1837-1904) married a Sarah Symonds in 1861 – she was the daughter of mariner George Symonds. Edmund worked at sea as a fisherman and beachman before his death in 1904. Sarah died in Yarmouth Hospital in 1912.
  • Henry Robinson Symonds (1839-1847).
  • Charlotte Maria Symonds (1844-1922) married sailor Maurice Wallace in 1866 and had a daughter, Julia, but Maurice died soon after and Charlotte went to live with her mother and work as a beatster. She had several children in the 1880s but remained a widow until her death in 1922.
  • John Smith Symonds (1846-1882) worked as a fisherman out of Yarmouth. He died at sea in a disaster on 29 April 1882 that also claimed the lives of two men called James Symonds and a teenager called Robert Symonds.
• James Symonds (1813-????), my 4th great-grand uncle. James was baptised on 7 March 1813 at Holy Trinity & All Saints Church in Winterton, Norfolk, but what happened to him after this is a bit of a mystery. He may be the James Symonds who died in 1887 and was buried in Great Yarmouth on 8 July.
• Henry Symonds (1814-1816), my 4th great-grand uncle. Henry was baptised on 5 November 1814 at Holy Trinity & All Saints Church in Winterton, Norfolk. He died in 1816 and was buried in the village on 15 March.

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Charles Symonds (1740-????) and Ann Fuller (1742-1769).
My 6th great-grandparents.

I suspect my 6th great-grandfather was the Charles Symonds baptised in the parish church of St Peter’s in Repps with Bastwick, Norfolk, on 13 January 1740 – partly because the village is just a short distance from Winterton on the east coast, which is where he settled and raised his family. His parents were Charles Symonds and Ann Payne (see below).

I’m not entirely confident about his life but lack of alternatives point to Charles having married Ann Fuller at St Nicholas’s Church in Great Yarmouth, south of Winterton, on 7 February 1764. Ann came from Winterton, where she was baptised at Holy Trinity & All Saints on 9 May 1742.

The couple had children but again there is a degree of mystery around them, partly because of gaps in the record. Ann died young and was buried in Winterton on 3 May 1769. Charles’s trail goes cold after this and I’ve not been able to locate a burial I’m confident about. It’s also not known how he made a living.

Their children were probably:

• Mary Symonds (1764-????), my 5th great-grand aunt. She was baptised in Winterton on 16 December 1764 although the parents’ surnames were spelt Simons.
• James Symonds (1766-1855), my 5th great-grandfather. His details are further up this page.
• John Symonds (????-1768), my 5th great-grand uncle. I haven’t found a baptism but he was buried as an infant in Winterton, Norfolk, on 28 February 1768.
• Ann Symonds (????-1769), my 5th great-grand aunt. I haven’t found a baptism but she was buried as an infant in Winterton, Norfolk, on 8 May 1769.
• Sarah Symonds (1769-????), my 5th great-grand aunt. She was baptised on 19 March 1769 at Holy Trinity & All Saints in Winterton, Norfolk, but I’ve not found any further records I’m confident about.

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Charles Symonds (1703-1749) and Ann Payne (1701-????).
My 7th great-grandparents.

Charles Symonds was born in Ludham, Norfolk, on 26 October 1703, the son of husbandman John Symonds and Margaret Adams (see below). He was baptised in the parish church of St Catherine’s on 31 October. He married Ann Payne there on 7 May 1727. She came from a mile or two away in Repps with Bastwick, where she was baptised on 10 November 1701. The couple lived there after their marriage and raised a large family.

Charles died in 1749 and was buried on 13 September at St Peter’s in Repps with Bastwick, his surname given as Simons. Ann remarried on 22 April 1753 at St Edmund’s, Thurne with Ashby & Oby, her new husband being widower Richard Belson. Both were said to be of Repps with Bastwick. She died there in 1785 and was buried on 12 September.

Their children were as follows but I’ve found out little about them – partly because of how common their names were:

• Ann Symonds (1727-????), my 6th great-grand aunt. She was baptised on 4 February 1727 at St Catherine’s in Ludham, Norfolk, but I’ve not traced her after this.
• Elizabeth Symonds (1731-1735), my 6th great-grand aunt. She was baptised on 30 January 1731 at St Peter’s in Repps with Bastwick and buried there on 20 July 1735.
• Sarah Symonds (1734-????), my 6th great-grand aunt. She was baptised on 13 May 1734 at St Peter’s in Repps with Bastwick. It’s possible that she was the woman who married a William Gallant in Ormesby St Margaret in 1756 but this needs further investigation.
• John Symonds (1736-????), my 6th great-grand uncle. John was baptised on 10 April 1736 at St Peter’s in Repps with Bastwick. He may have married in Great Yarmouth in 1758 but I need more proof to be confident.
• Charles Symonds (1740-????), my 6th great-grandfather. See above.
• Hannah Symonds (1742-????), my 6th great-grand aunt. She was baptised on 28 November 1742 at St Peter’s in Repps with Bastwick. Was she the woman who married Thomas Bennett in Great Yarmouth in 1764 or Nathaniel Hay there in 1769?
• Samuel Symonds (1748-????), my 6th great-grand uncle. He was baptised on 28 February 1748 at St Peter’s in Repps with Bastwick. I’ve not traced him with confidence beyond this.

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John Symonds (????-1715) and Margaret Adams (????-1709).
My 8th great-grandparents.

I’ve not been able to confirm the births of John or Margaret, but it’s possible he was born in Hickling in 1654. The couple married at St Mary’s Church there on 13 April 1691, Easter Monday. He was a widower, she a singlewoman, and both were of the parish of Ludham.

They raised a large family at Ludham, where John worked as a husbandman according to the baptism records of some of his children.

Margaret died in 1709 and was buried in Ludham on 4 March. It’s likely that John was buried in Ludham on 9 April 1715, although on this occasion he was described as a yeoman. The difference was that a husbandman tended to farm land that he held leasehold or copyhold whereas a yeoman farmed his own land. Was this the same John, who’d had success as a farmer or a different person entirely? No age was given at his burial.

John and Margaret had a large family:

• Margaret Symonds (1691-1767), my 7th great-grand aunt. Margaret was born on 29 December 1691 and was baptised a few days later on 10 January at St Catherine’s Church. She married John Moneyman at St Nicholas’s in Potter Heigham, a parish a couple of miles away. They raised a family in Ludham and she died there in 1767, being buried on 25 October. John had died many years earlier and was buried on 29 March 1748.
• John Symonds (1693-1693), my 7th great-grand uncle. Born on 21 May and baptised four days later in Ludham, he was buried on 28 May 1693.
• Elizabeth Symonds (1694-????), my 7th great-grand aunt. Elizabeth was born on 11 September 1694 and was baptised a few weeks later on 25 September at St Catherine’s Church.
• Jacob Symonds (1695-1697), my 7th great-grand uncle. Born on 28 October 1695, Jacob was baptised on 12 November in Ludham. He was buried on 23 February 1697.
• Simon Symonds (1696-1697), my 7th great-grand uncle. Born on 17 February, Jacob was baptised four days later in Ludham. He was buried on 22 April 1697.
• Sarah Symonds (1698-????), my 7th great-grand aunt. Sarah was born on 1 July and baptised on 12 July 1698 at St Catherine’s Church. She married Thomas Green in the village on 13 December 1724.
• Martha Symonds (1699-????), my 7th great-grand aunt. Martha was born on 3 October and baptised on 24 October 1699 at St Catherine’s Church, Ludham. She married William Patterson or Potterton in nearby Potter Heigham on 5 March 1721.

Sources: All BMD and census data has been gathered from Ancestry.co.uk, FindMyPast.co.uk, FamilySearch.org and the British Newspaper Archive – titles mentioned within the text. David Higgins’ book on The Beachmen (published by Terence Dalton, 1987). Wikipedia.