William Symonds Sir William Symonds CB FRS ( 24 September 1782 , Bury St Edmunds – 30 March 1856 , aboard the French steamship " Nil " , Strait of Bonifacio , Sardinia ) was Surveyor of the Navy in the Royal Navy from 9 June 1832 to October 1847 , and took part in the naval reforms instituted by the Whig First Lord of the Admiralty Sir James Robert George Graham in 1832 . Life . Early life . He was the second son of a naval captain , Thomas Symonds ( ? - 1793 ) and his second wife , and first went to sea on , , in September 1794 . Serving in Lord Bridport ' s fleet at the Battle of Groix on 23 June 1795 and during the 1797 Spithead mutiny , he was promoted to lieutenant on 14 October 1801 . However , despite service at sea for the whole duration of the Napoleonic Wars ( in which experiences of being outsailed by French ships left him with an obsession for speed , wide beams and sharp design in his later designs for sailing ships ) and showing fine seamanship , he was promoted no further ( though between 1819 and 1825 he was captain of the port at Malta ) . Experiments in naval architecture . Using a minor legacy from Admiral Sir William Cornwallis ( who left his estate to his best friend ' s widow , Symonds ' sister ) , in 1821 Symonds built an experimental yacht , which was copied by the rich yachtsman George Vernon , who aided his publication of a pamphlet on naval architecture . Vernon also convinced the Admiralty to employ Symonds as a corvette designer , with promotion to commander , by standing his surety with a bond of £20 , 000 should Symonds fail in his designs , and by then introducing him to the Duke of Portland in December 1826 . Of his two yacht designs for the Duke , one ( " Pantaloon " , 1832 ) was later bought by the Admiralty for adaptation as a 10 gun brig . When Portland entered George Canning ' s Cabinet in April 1827 , he then promoted Symonds as a designer to the Lord High Admiral , the Duke of Clarence , who appointed Symonds to the royal yacht and granted him his captaincy on 5 December the same year . Sailing trials in 1827 and 1831 were won by Symonds ' entries , and ( with Clarence ' s accession as William IV , the Whig abolition of the Navy Board and Earl Grey ' s ministry ) he was taken on to design a 50 gun frigate , which he named after his patron . Naval surveyor . Symonds was appointed the Surveyor of the Navy on 9 June 1832 by Sir James Graham , the Whig First Lord of the Admiralty . He was intended to control the Navy ' s dockyards and shipbuilding programme , but ( thanks to his title of surveyor and the vague wording of the instructions given him ) he also began to meddle in ship design , forcing the Navy to adopt his designs despite much opposition to this , to his appointment being a political one rather than one based on aptitude , and to his position as a favourite of the king ( who , for example , omitted to inform the Admiralty of his intention to make him a Knight Bachelor but still went ahead with it , on 15 June 1836 at St James ' s Palace ) . He also became a Fellow of the Royal Society in June 1835 . Ship - design was no longer the important part of Surveyor ' s role that it had been , and so Symonds was its first holder to have been an amateur ship - designer rather than a professional shipwright . Nevertheless , the observations and experience gained in such design allowed him to introduce radical changes to ship design , such as widening Navy ships ' beams and making their bottoms more wedge - shaped ( to decrease the amount of ballast needed and to increase stability , speed , stowage and the weight of guns that could be carried ) . ( However , with the decline in the sailing navy , most of Symonds ' huge wooden sailing designs - larger , heavier - rigged , wider - beamed , more spacious for working their guns and heavier armament than ever before - became obsolete with the decline of sail and were later converted to steam - screw . ) During his time in office , he also took on George Rennie ' s suggestion of creating watertight compartments in ships ( something first suggested for the Royal Navy by Samuel Bentham ) . In 1840 he privately published a book of sketches of men - of - war and yachts , under the title " Naval Costume " . He also travelled much overseas , accurately observing the timber resources and navies of foreign powers such as the Russian Baltic and Black Sea Fleets ( whose inefficiency at a time of increased Anglo - Russian tension proved a useful observation ) . This informed his reporting of British oak supplies from the forest of Dean and the New Forest , improved timber supplies and ( along with a new means of construction invented by the talented Chief Clerk in the Surveyor ' s Office , John Edye , who also provided the detail for Symonds ' over 200 designs for the Navy ) allowed Symonds to create larger and larger wooden warships . These were able not only to defeat an enemy by weight of fire ( as the Navy had long been able to do ) but also to pursue them and force battle . Despite his feeling that steam was only an adjunct to a sailing navy rather than the future of naval propulsion ( based on his correct assertion that the a wooden warship ' s stern would be weakened by adding a steam screw ) , Symonds did also produce some steam paddle - wheel designs . However , Symonds ' " empirical " school of shipbuilding came into conflict both with the " scientific " school led by the new class of professional naval architects and the first School of Naval Architecture ( closed in 1832 ) , and the " traditional " school led by Master Shipwrights from the Royal Dockyards . Autocratic in office , demanding obedience and support from subordinates and superiors alike and taking any criticism or suggested alteration to his designs as a personal slight , he turned on his opponents in the pamphlet " Facts versus Fiction " ( 1844 ) . Determined to prove Symonds ' designs to be failures , the new Tory Board of Admiralty sent out successive " Experimental Squadron s " in 1844 , 1845 and 1846 . Outside factors such as individual captains ' political bias or stowage ' s influence on how well a ship sailed were underappreciated in these trials - the success of Symonds ' designs depended on the skill of their captains ( they handled badly under clumsy ones , or ones opposed to him , but very well under skilled commanders ) - whilst his larger ships were fast but unsuited to use as gun platforms due to rolling too rapidly . They did , however , handle well in all but the worst weather . Nevertheless , in the face of the Tory First Sea Lord Lord Ellenborough ' s institution of a " Committee of Reference " in 1846 to oversee Symonds and modify his designs according to the Board ' s wishes , a command to make a radical alteration to his design for a new 90 gun ship , and loss of most of his Whig support even on their return to power in July 1846 , Symonds resigned his role in October 1847 ( despite retaining the Duke of Portland ' s continued support ) , and was succeeded by Sir Baldwin Walker . Retirement . Despite his fall from grace , he was granted an Order of the Bath ( civil ) on 1 May 1848 , and in June 1853 James Graham , having again become First Sea Lord , was convinced by the Duke of Portland to take Symonds back on , as the Queen ' s naval Aide - de - Camp . Becoming a retired rear admiral the following year , he and his third wife from then on lived abroad , principally in Malta and Italy , for reasons of his health . He died at sea in 1856 , en route from Malta to Marseilles , and was buried at the Protestant Cemetery at the latter . His will required the publication of a biography in his favour - this repeated the arguments over his sailing - ship designs despite the Navy ' s having long abandoned sail by this date . Family . On 21 April 1808 William married Elizabeth Saunders Luscombe , daughter of Matthew Luscombe of Plymouth , and they had : After Elizabeth ' s death , William remarried on 10 March 1818 , Elizabeth Mary , daughter of Rear - Admiral Philip Carteret , of Trinity Manor , Jersey . After her death , he married a third and final time , in 1851 , to Susan Mary , daughter of the Revd John Briggs .