Author: Symmons, Caroline
Biography:
SYMMONS, Caroline (1789-1803: ancestry.co.uk)
She was born on 12 Apr. 1789, one of at least seven children of the Rev. Charles Symmons, DD (1749-1826) (q.v.), author and translator, Rector of Narbeth, Pembrokeshire and later Prebendary of St. David’s Cathedral, and his wife Elizabeth Foley (1759-1830), who had married on 28 Oct. 1779 at Llawhaden, Pembrokeshire. She was probably baptised at Slebech, Pembrokeshire, but there is a gap in the registers after the baptisms of her sister Fannia and brother Charles on 28 Feb. 1788. She began writing poetry at the age of ten and displayed precocious talent with The Sicilian Captive, A Tragedy (1800) and the posthumously edited The Cottage of the Var. A Tale (1809). Her father also wrote poetry and a well-regarded life of Milton and sent some of her verse to Francis Wrangham (q.v.) who appended a selection of her work and a short memoir to his The Raising of Jaïrus’ Daughter (1804), 17-45. Her father reprinted Wrangham’s memoir and added more poems in his edition of Poems (1812). He had hoped to become a Prebendary at Westminster Abbey and the family lived most of the time in Chiswick, outer London, but his Whig views prevented his advancement in the church. She died on 1 June 1803 from consumption and was buried at St. Margaret’s, Westminster, on 10 June 1803. (ancestry.co.uk 28 Nov. 2021; findmypast.co.uk 28 Nov. 2021; "Symmons, Charles," ODNB 28 Nov. 2021; Francis Wrangham, "A Short Memoir" [1804]; Samuel Egerton Brydges, Censuria Literaria 3 [1807], 325-6) AA