SYMONDS, Norman Edmonton (1883-1968), active in Vancouver, B.C. as an architect from 1907 until 1914. Many of his clients included Chinese and Japanese land owners who commissioned him to design stores, rooming houses and a new club building for the Chinese Empire Reform Association in 1912. Born in Toronto, Ont. on 9 October 1883, he may have trained in the building trades there, but moved west to British Columbia in 1905. He began to advertise himself as an architect there in 1907 (Province [Vancouver], 19 Aug. 1907, 9, advert.), and in early 1908 he was invited to form a partnership with Morley O. Jones, as Jones & Symonds, Architects (Vancouver City Directory, 1908, 687 and 968). Their collaboration ended in late 1909, and Symonds then opened an office under his own name. No information has been found on his architectural work after 1914, and he is listed variously as a millwright (in 1921), and as a builder (in 1928). Symonds died in Vancouver on 4 February 1968 (death notice, Province [Vancouver], 6 Feb. 1968, 26).
(works in Vancouver)
POWELL STREET, near Gore Avenue, rooming house and retail store for Sam Yuen Mah, 1911-12 (City of Vancouver b.p. 16 Dec. 1911; C.R., xxvi, 3 Jan. 1912, 67)
CEDAR STREET, at West 2nd Avenue, rooming house for Tomikichi Saki, 1912 (City of Vancouver b.p. 2243, 3 May 1912)
CHINESE EMPIRE REFORM ASSOCIATION, Carrall Street near West Pender Street, a 3 storey club building with retails stores, 1912 (The Sun [Vancouver], 29 July 1912, 16, illus. & descrip.)
POWELL STREET, near Gore Avenue, a 4 storey block for L.A. Lewis and Mr. Mathers of New Westminster, 1912 (City of Vancouver b.p. 2861, 8 July 1912; Province [Vancouver], 14 Sept. 1912, 30, descrip.)
POWELL STREET, near Main Street, a 4 storey rooming house and retail store for Sam Yuen Mah, 1912 (City of Vancouver b.p. 3493, 20 Sept. 1912; Province [Vancouver], 14 Sept. 1912, 30, descrip.; 30 Sept. 1912, 15, descrip.)
EAST HASTINGS STREET, near Slocan Street, residence for C. De Graves, 1914 (City of Vancouver b.p. 6693, 20 May 1914; inf. Patrick Gunn, City of Vancouver)