Captain Thomas Symonds, R.N. (died 1793) was a British naval captain of the American Revolutionary War

American Revolutionary War

The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...

.

In 1780, in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, he replaced John Luttrell as captain of , and sailed for America with a naval force. After successful anti-convoy operations on the Atlantic crossing and coastal cruising, the ship became trapped in the York River, Virginia, where Symonds took supreme command of British naval forces in America. Charon was destroyed and sunk with red-hot shot soon afterwards.http://books.google.com/books?id=Wt2OHg8EFjwC&pg=RA1-PA204&lpg=RA1-PA204&dq=%22captain+thomas+symonds%22&source=web&ots=l2HIxJqw9e&sig=SDOG73neFcKI1kZ3QKm-LlnSOZg#PRA1-PA204,M1 At the end of the Siege of Yorktown

Siege of Yorktown

The Siege of Yorktown, Battle of Yorktown, or Surrender of Yorktown in 1781 was a decisive victory by a combined assault of American forces led by General George Washington and French forces led by the Comte de Rochambeau over a British Army commanded by Lieutenant General Lord Cornwallis...

, it was he (as the most senior naval officer present) and Cornwallis

Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis

Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis KG , styled Viscount Brome between 1753 and 1762 and known as The Earl Cornwallis between 1762 and 1792, was a British Army officer and colonial administrator...

, Lieutenant General of the British Armed Forces, who signed the Articles of Capitulation on October 18, 1781.

His son was William Symonds

William Symonds

Sir William Symonds FRS 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.-Early life:He was the second son...

, Surveyor of the Navy

Surveyor of the Navy

The Surveyor to the Navy was a civilian officer in the Royal Navy. He was a member of the Navy Board from the inauguration of that body in 1546, and held overall responsibility for the design of British warships, although until 1745 the actual design work for warships built at each Royal Dockyard...

, and his grandsons included William Cornwallis Symonds

William Cornwallis Symonds

Captain William Cornwallis Symonds was a British Army officer who was prominent in the early colonisation of New Zealand. He was the eldest son of William Symonds, Surveyor of the Navy....

 and Thomas Matthew Charles Symonds.

External links

• The Avalon Project at Yale Law School
• Between Slavery and Freedom: Virginia Blacks in the American Revolution, by Sylvia R. Frey, The Journal of Southern History, 1983, Southern Historical Association
• Rhode Island in British Strategy, 1780-1781, by William B. Willcox, The Journal of Modern History, 1945, The University of Chicago Press