Symons, Mr Bartle

Singer

Collection date: May 1913

Area: Cornwall

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Mr W.H.Bartle Symons at Camborne, Cornwall (1874-1949): age 39, 1 song 10 May 1913: Mr Symons sang ‘Nowell Nowell’ (FT2846) and it was published in the Journal of the Folk-Song Society 5 (1914) pp26-27, where he confessed that it was not 'his' song but that he had learned it as a boy 'many years ago from Mr Spargo (70 or 80 years of age)'.

William Henry Bartle Symons was born on 6/9/1874, only child of Henry and Harriet Symons. In the 1881 census Harriet was described as a widow and seems to have brought her son up single-handedly. Her maiden name was Bartle and she had married in Oct 1873 (5c 421). She was initially a dressmaker and over 4 decades lived in North Rd Camborne, two streets away from the Spargo family. 

This was headed by Thomas Spargo (1811-1888), a stonemason who married a widow Sally Bartle in 1836. She brought 3 boys and a girl, Mary Ann, to the marriage (by her first husband William Bartle). Thomas thus became stepfather to Mary Ann, who was the mother of Harriet and grandmother of our singer Bartle Symons. Thomas had no children by his wife Sally and must have grown close to his stepdaughter Mary Ann.

Sally died in 1862 and Thomas Spargo, aged 52, was remarried to Ann Odgers in 1863 (they had no children together). Thomas continued to live near to the Bartle/Symons family. He did not die till 1888 and the link between the two families must have been maintained perhaps at Christmas time in the singing of this carol. 

Bartle Symons was a pupil teacher in the 1891 census and a Board School teacher in 1901 in Trelowarren St, Camborne (ref RG13/2243 f98 p2). He lived with his mother Harriet, who became a shopkeeper and grocer, but she died in November 1912. Bartle Symons was a lecturer in Agricultural Science in the 1921 census and married Florence Keast in 1926. When he died 24/2/1949, he left £609 to his widow Florence Marjory.

Note: Sharp collected only 2 folk versions of the 'First Nowell' carol in his career, one from Bartle Symons and one (the day before) from Samuel Heather (see his entry). The chorus begins: 'Nowell and nowell!' Sharp slightly smoothed out Symon's version for the Journal and that is what survives in the New Oxford Book of Carols p482. It is sometimes sung today.