Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 55.djvu/276

 and from that time the success of steam navigation in Britain was assured. Meanwhile Symington drifted to London, a disappointed man. In 1825 he was given a grant of 100l. from the privy purse, and later on another of 50l., in recognition of his services to the cause of steam navigation; but his attempts to obtain an annuity were unavailing. He was subsequently given a small grant by the London steamboat proprietors.

He died on 22 March 1831, and was buried at St. Botolph in Aldgate. His first engine, made for the Dalswinton loch boat, is now in the South Kensington Museum.



SYMINGTON, WILLIAM (1795–1862), divine, younger brother of [q. v.], was born at Paisley on 2 June 1795. Having early devoted himself to the ministry, at the age of fifteen he entered the university of Glasgow. After the usual four years' course in arts, he attended for another four years the theological hall of the reformed presbyterian church, then under the charge of the Rev. John Macmillan, the third of that name in the ministry at Stirling. He was licensed to preach on 30 June 1818. Called to Airdrie and Stranraer, he accepted the latter, and was ordained there on 18 Aug. 1819. He was popular and successful; many belonging to other denominations and from different parts of Galloway attended the services of the Cameronian meeting-house, and a new church was erected in 1824. He received the degree of D.D. from the university of Edinburgh on 20 Nov. 1838. On 5 March 1839 he was called to Great Hamilton Street reformed presbyterian church, Glasgow, to succeed the Rev. D. Armstrong, and was inducted on 11 July of that year. Here also large audiences gathered to hear him, his Sunday-evening lectures being especially popular. He took a deep interest in bible circulation, home and foreign missions, and other religious movements. One of his missionaries in Glasgow was John G. Paton, D.D., afterwards of New Hebrides. On the death of his brother Andrew in 1853, William was chosen to succeed him as professor of theology in the reformed presbyterian church. The pastorate in Glasgow was still retained, but in March 1859 his eldest son, William, then minister in Castle-Douglas, was inducted as colleague and successor in the ministry. He died on 28 Jan. 1862, and was buried in the necropolis of Glasgow.

In the denomination with which he was connected Dr. Symington exercised for some years a predominant influence. He was a man of noble presence and winning manners, and a speaker of great power and persuasiveness.

He was the author of: He also edited Scott's ‘Commentary on the Bible,’ 1845–9, 4to, and Stephen Charnock's ‘Chief of Sinners,’ 1847, 12mo, besides contributing a life of Charnock to ‘Christian Biography,’ 1853, 12mo.
 * 1) ‘The Atonement and Intercession of Jesus Christ;’ 2nd edit. Edinburgh, 1834, 8vo.
 * 2) ‘Messiah the Prince;’ 2nd edit. Edinburgh, 1840, 8vo.
 * 3) ‘Discourses on Public Occasions,’ Glasgow, 1851, 12mo, besides several tracts and sermons.



SYMMONS, CHARLES (1749–1826), man of letters, born at Pembroke in 1749, was the younger son of John Symmons of Llanstinan, Pembrokeshire, M.P. for Cardigan from March 1746 to 1761, and presumably the John Symmons who died in George Street, Hanover Square, London, on 7 Nov. 1771. He was admitted at Westminster school on 14 Jan. 1765, and was even then fond of poetical exercises. In 1767 he was at the university of Glasgow, where he laid the foundation of an ardent friendship with [q. v.] He went to Cambridge as a ten-year man in 1776, being admitted on 14 Feb. in that year, and graduated B.D. in 1786. He was probably ordained in the English church about 1775, and in 1778 he was appointed to the rectory of Narberth with Robeston in Pembrokeshire. In 1787 he printed a volume of sermons which passed into a second edition in 1789. He was appointed to the prebendal stall of Clydey in St. David's Cathedral on 11 Oct. 1789.

Soon after the trial of [q. v.] in 1793, Symmons came into residence at Cambridge to keep the exercises for taking the degree of D.D. These involved the preaching of two sermons, one in English and the other in Latin, before the members of the university at St. Mary's. In the former he expressed some whig doctrines which were seized on by his political antagonists at Cambridge. One of them, [q. v.], borrowed the manuscript under some pretence and then sent extracts, garbled and detached from the context, to the bishop of St. David's, Windham, and others. Sym-