The Symes Family

The Children of Charles and Jane Symes

 Charles and Jane Symes had eleven children in all.  They all lived in The Georgian House.

There were six daughters and the thumbnail photograph here shows the four eldest girls; Ellen, Annie, Rose and Dorothy.  Please click on it to see it in a larger view.

Ellen had been born on 7th March 1880.   The census does not show an occupation, but Jack Pridham, one of their descendants, has told us that she worked in her parents' shop until her marriage to George Bartlett a policeman, with whom she moved to Cheltenham and then to Gloucester.

The next daughter was Annie Symes.  Annie was born 5th February 1882.  In the census it says that Annie was a dressmaker on her own account.  Annie married Charles Arthur Pitcher in 1903 and they ran the post office in Thornbury for many years.   For more information about Charles and Annie Pitcher, please click here.

Rose Symes was born 2nd October 1887.  She was only 13 years old in the 1901 census.  However, we have learned from her nephew, Jack Pridham, that Rose went into the family business and after her father's death, she ran the seed store on the corner of Gloucester Road and The Plain.  Jack said that Rose was engaged to a soldier who died in World War One and that she never married and always seems to have had very poor health.  Rose lived in The Georgian House with the Pridham family.  She died in March 1970.  Please click on the thumbnail photograph on the right to see Rose Symes and an advertisement for her shop.

Dorothy Kathleen Symes was born 1st November 1891.  She married Sydney Harriss Gayner, a draper and milliner in the High Street.  They had two daughters, Pamela and Jean Frances.  Sidney died in July 1965 aged 79 and is buried in Thornbury Cemetery with Dorothy who died in June 1965.

The next daughter was Gwendoline Irena Symes who was born on 15th June 1896.  Gwen worked as a morse and telegraph operator for Charlie Pitcher at the Post Office.  Sadly she developed an auto-immune disorder and died in 1921 aged just 25.  A thumbnail photograph of Gwen is shown on the left here.  Please click on it if you wish to see it in a larger view.

The youngest daughter was Marjorie Iris Symes who was born 5th May 1903. She too worked in the house and the shop until she married Albert James Pridham in 1927.  Marjorie and "Bert" Pridham, as he was generally known, lived in the house for many years and so we have created a separate page to deal with this part of the family.  Click here to read more.

The eldest son was called Percy Symes.  He was born February 3rd 1884.  The 1901 census shows that at age 17 he was training to be a carpenter.  He emigrated to Australia a few years before the outbreak of World War One and when the War began he joined the Australian army.  He was a sergeant in the war and was awarded the Distinguished Conduct medal in 1917 "for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty, by encouraging his men he established them rapidly in a strong defensive position, afterwards taking water up to the outposts and bringing back a wounded man from 'No Man's Land' under heavy fire."  He met his first wife in hospital when he was wounded and they had one son, Ronald, who was shot down and killed in the Second World War.  

Edward Ewart Symes was born 2nd March 1886.  He was still a schoolboy in the 1901 census, but we have been told by his nephew, Jack Pridham, that 'Ted' went to Birmingham during world War One, where he and his wife, Fanny (nee Ashcroft)   worked together on the trams.  After the War, Edward returned to Thornbury and his peace time occupation as a gardener.  He worked for Sir Algar Howard.  After living in the Georgian House for a short time, he and his wife set up home in Castle Street.  They had one son, Edward Symes.  The only photograph we have of Edward is shown here on the right.  Edward is at the back behind his mother, Jane.  Also in the photograph are Ellen (far left) and Albert and Marjorie Pridham (the couple on the right).  Please click on it to see a larger image.

Charles Howard Symes was born 3rd March 1889, sadly he died 9th February 1891.  Christopher Symes who was born in 1891 also failed to live very long.  He died in 1892.

Cecil Bernard Symes was born in the second quarter of 1894 and was known by his family as "Nard".  He attended Thornbury Grammar School where he seems to have done well.  He is pictured here in a thumbnail photograph with his sisters, Ellen and Annie.  Please click on the photograph to see it in a larger view. 

Due to a heart condition, he was originally rejected by the army but he eventually joined the Royal Army Medical Corps.  One one his nephews, Jack Pridham, has told us that staff Sergeant C B Symes was mentioned in a despatch from Field Marshall Sir John French on 30th November 1915 "for gallant and distinguished service". A letter signed by Winston S Churchill says " I have it in command from the King to record his Majesty's high appreciation of the service rendered."

In the army he became an expert on malaria carrying mosquitoes.  On his  discharge from the army he joined the Colonial Office.  In 1919 studied at the Royal College of Science (later Imperial College) for a one year diploma in entomology.  Afterwards he worked for the Colonial Office in Southern Rhodesia and then Nairobi where he continued his work on malaria carrying mosquitoes and created the Entomological Section of The Medical Research Labs.  The studies he did on the behaviour of malarial mosquitoes between 1925 and 1945 in Kenya are still acknowledged in papers on this subject.   As well as Kenya, he  also worked in Mauritius, Fiji, Portugal and Brazil.

A new species of mosquito is actually named 'Anopheles symesi' after him.

"Nard" spent his leaves from the Colonial Service in the family home  (the Georgian House).  He maintained his Colonial routines even in Thornbury by having cold baths early every morning and pink gins every evening!  His first wife, Betty, apparently declined to join him in Thornbury, preferring the bright lights of London.  Charles Bernard Symes was awarded the CBE, presumably for his work in the Colonial Services.  After the death of his second wife he retired to Somerset where he died in his nineties.

This page was last updated: 14/08/2008