SYMONDS
,
RICHARD
(
1609
-
?
),
Puritan preacher
.
He was b. at
Abergavenny
,
1609
, the son of
Thomas
Symonds
, and very probably a relative of the
Nicodemus
Symonds
who was one of the chief citizens. He went to
Exeter College
,
Oxford
, matriculating in
1627
, graduating
B.A.
in
1629
.
Baxter
says that
Symonds
about 1635
kept school
in
Shrewsbury
, that he himself was one of his pupils, that the
master
gave harbour to
Walter
Cradock
(q.v.)
when he had to leave
Wrexham
. In
1638-9
many
Puritans
, including
Symonds
, found refuge at
Brampton Bryan
with
Sir
Robert
Harley
and
his wife
Brilliana
. When the
Civil War
broke out, he is heard of at
Bristol
, also
preaching
at
Andover
, and for a time holding the living of
Sandwich
in
Kent
. In
1646
Parliament
resolved to make an effort to evangelize
South Wales
, and for that purpose sent three
missionaries
there —
Henry
Walter
,
Walter
Cradock
, and
Richard
Symonds
— all three to
preach
in
Welsh
, all three to have £100 per annum out of the lands of the disendowed
dean
and
chapter
. In
1646 (30 Sept.)
and
1648 (26 April)
Symonds
was asked to
preach
before the
House of Commons
; in
1650
he was named as one of the twenty-five
approvers
under the
Propagation Act
. His sphere of activity, both as
preacher
and
approver
, lay mainly in
Glamorgan
, and little is heard of him until in
1657
the ‘
Triers
’ appointed him as ‘
lecturer
’ in the
cathedral church of Llandaff
. There (according to a manuscript in the
Bodleian library
), he paid £550 for part of the lands that once belonged to the
bishop
. Though
Symonds
was one of the more prominent
Puritan
names during the wars and the Propagation period, one cannot escape the conclusion that he sank into comparative obscurity in the latter days of the Republic, and d.
before 1660
; at least, not a word is heard of him after the
Restoration
.
Bibliography:
-
Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography
;
-
The Journals of the House of Lords
, viii, 568-9;
-
The Journals of the House of
Commons
, iv, 678, v, 545;
-
Bodl. J. Walker
, c. 13 (17, 31);
-
Lambeth MS.
995, 113;
-
Rawlinson Manuscript at the Bodlean Library,
Oxford.
B. 239 (29) (no. 378).
Author:
Thomas Richards, D.Litt., (1878-1962), Bangor
