When Symonds's mother Harriet died, her sister, Mary Anne Sykes, was moved in to raise John and his two sisters. Her impact on the Symonds' siblings upbringing was not as pronounced (or at least as well explored) as that of his father, Dr.Symonds, although she is well-drawn just enough to expose some complexity. She was not unkind, but she was not entirely kind, either: she instilled in her charges an anxiety about their inherent lower-classness, a sense that 'Symonds', as a name at least, was common, and connected them forever to the grubby masses. "Auntie" Sykes also made her nephew's memoirs by demanding that he give up his much beloved stuffed kingfisher to some other boy (Grosskurth, 8).

"A portrait in oils of Symonds, Vigor, 1853"

John Addington Symonds with his wife, Catherine, and his father.

Images from:The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds , ed. Phyllis Grosskurth (London: Hutchinson, 1984).