Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Youngest of three siblings who served in the Army, Private Horace Augustus Symonds (Service Nos:W1816/W68991) initially served in the Militia as a Trooper with 25th Light Horse (Machine Gun) Regiment from 15 August 1940 to 27 March 1941. Private Symonds enlisted in the ACMF on 29 March 1942, and served with 3rd and 2nd (WA) Battalions VDC until Discharge on 31 July 1945.

Horace was born in Bunbury, Western Australia in 1905, youngest of eight children of Job (Joe) Augustus Symonds (b1868 in London, England) and Alice Cook (b1859 in Essex, England). Joe had run away from home at nine years of age to work on the Thames barges, and at twelve joined the Royal Navy before serving in the Merchant Navy. In 1887 he was an Able Seaman on board the Yeoman when he arrived in Albany, Western Australia and started work as dinghy crew. Alice (a Domestic Servant) arrived in Albany in 1889 on board the Oroya, immediately sailing by dinghy to Breaksea Island where she and Joe married under special licence - Joe was Assistant Lighthouse Keeper. Joe and Alice lived in Albany, Rottnest Island and Bunbury, where they raised their family and Joe worked as Dinghy Crewman, Lighthouse Keeper, Diver and Harbour Pilot. In 1909 the couple took up land at Arthur River near Darkan, where Joe was a Farmer, before returning to sea in 1912. Alice remained on the farm with the children, later moving in to  Darkan. Joe joined the Royal Navy in WWI, returning to Australia where he worked as a Mariner and settled in Gladstone QLD in the early 1930s.

Horace was a Hotelkeeper in Darkan in the 1920s, and in 1931 in Katanning married Florence (Sallie) Amy Newbey (b1905 in Kerang, Victoria). Horace and Sallie lived in Wagin and at North Beach, where they raised their family and Horace was a Butcher. In the early 1950s Horace and Sallie settled in Armadale, where Horace was an Orchardist before retiring to South Perth in the late 1960s. Horace died in 1989 and Sallie in 2001.