The Symes Family

Charles Symes - the cooper and seedsman

Charles Symes was born in Thornbury about 1856 when his family were living in Pullins Green.  He was one of the ten children of William, a tailor, and Matilda Symes, a dressmaker, who had just moved to Thornbury from Shepton Mallett.  The Symes family were soon to have five businesses in Thornbury plus others run by men who had married into the Symes family, and thus had a major influence on the trading life of the town.  Click here to see more information on the other members of the Symes family.

By the age of 15 Charles was apprenticed as a cooper.  In the 1871 census he was still living at the family home in Pullins Green.

In 1879 Charles married Jane Maishment, the daughter of another tailor, George Maishment.  By  1881 Charles and Jane were living in St Mary Street with their baby daughter, Ellen, then only one year old.  Charles was working as a cooper.  The trade directories show that from about 1889 to 1897 Charles had a shop in the High Street in Thornbury, where he traded as a cooper.

 By 1897 this business had grown to include a seedsman business, which sold seeds and garden supplies.  The 1891 census confirms that Charles and Jane were living in the High Street (two buildings up from the Swan).  By this time as well as Ellen, now eleven year old, they had  Annie aged 9, Percy aged 7, Edward 5 and Rose aged 3.  The household had a young servant girl, Sarah Osborne.

By 1898 Charles's business was doing well enough for him to buy the large house on The Plain, now known as The Georgian House.  It apparently cost him £690 and he bought it from Thomas Meredith.  The picture shown above is of Charles Symes standing outside his shop.

It was a very large house with a number of outbuildings that easily accommodated the growing family.  There was also room for a coopering workshop in the garden along the Eastern wall.  This was used for servicing cider barrels.  Albert Pridham later converted it into a forge.

The actual shop was an extension to the front of the house, which Charles had built about 1900.  It was a large, quite unattractive structure of yellow brick and roof made of corrugated metal sheets.  It remained until the 1980's when it was demolished and the garden more or less restored - although the soil must be quite shallow in places as the foundations of the shop were not actually removed.

The other advantage of this house was the very large walled garden.  This provided Charles with the opportunity to extend his activities into market gardening.  He sold the garden's produce of fruit, vegetables and flowers by going round the villages in a horse and trap.  The horse called 'Didymus' was housed in the stable at the edge of  the garden.

The Gazette of March 6th 1915 has a sad story about Charles Symes and his horse and trap.  It explains that a 64 year old woman called Christiana Young, the wife of Charles Young, a chimney sweep, was walking along the middle of the Gloucester Road.  Charles Symes seems to have been travelling quite briskly along the road because he overtook a wagon carrying mangolds and reached the lady who was then near Pitcher's workshop where the road was said to be "only 18 feet wide".  Sadly the lady's skirt was caught in the trap's offside wheel and she was turned round and flung on her back on the road, knocked unconscious by the fall.

Doctor Lionel Williams was summoned and took the lady in his car to the Union Workhouse Infirmary, which was only a little way down the road.  On examining her there, he found she had a fractured skull, which lead to her death.  The coroner, Mr Edwin Watts, held an inquest at the Union Infirmary and determined that the cause of death was a fractured skull from an accidental fall.  A court today might have enquired more closely into the speed and care of the driver involved.

Charles traded at The Georgian House until his death.  He was buried in Thornbury Cemetery in March 1933 with his much loved wife Jane, who died only three months before him. 

Click here to read more about the lives of the children of Charles and Jane, including their daughter, Rose, who inherited the house and business when her father died, and Marjorie and her husband, Albert Pridham who shared the house with Rose for many years and lived there after Rose's death.

This page was last updated: 13/01/2008