Geologist
Born 1818 Died 1887

William Samuel Symonds was born in Hereford in 1818. He was educated at Cheltenham and Christ's College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1842. Having taken holy orders he was appointed curate of Offenham, near Evesham in 1843, and two years later he was presented to the living of Pendock in Worcestershire, where he remained until 1877. While at Offenham he became acquainted with H. E. Strickland and imbibed from him such an interest in natural history and geology, that his leisure was henceforth devoted to these subjects. He was one of the founders of the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club (1851) and of the Malvern Naturalists' Field Club (1853), and was an active member of the Cotteswold Field Club and other local societies.

In 1858 he edited an edition of Hugh Miller's Cruise of the Betsey. He was the author of numerous essays on the geology of the Malvern country, notably of a paper On the passage-beds from the Upper Silurian rocks into the Lower Old Red Sandstone at Ledbury (Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society 1860). His principal work was Records of the Rocks (1872)He was author of Stones of the Valley (1857), Old Bones, or Notes for Young Naturalists (1859, 2nd ed. 1864), and other popular works. He died at Cheltenham on the 15th of September 1887.

See A Sketch of the Life of the Rev. W. S. Symonds, by the Rev. J. D. La Touche.

Being the entry for SYMONDS, WILLIAM SAMUEL in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, the text of which lies within the public domain.