Thomas Symonds was vicar of Eynsham in the first half of the nineteenth century. During this time, he filled nine large manuscript volumes with notes concerning Oxfordshire history, people, and places, sometimes copying other sources, from the Domesday Book to local Newspapers, sometimes writing his own material. It is mostly in his own hand, but the later volumes show at least one other hand at work. He seems to have begun his work in the 1820's, and the last dated entry is for 8 December 1844, barely a month before his death.
Symonds only managed to fill pages 1-53, 68-110 and 498-504 of the ninth book before he died on 7 January 1845. Soon afterwards, his books came in to the possession of John Davenport, who used blank pages as a scrapbook for ephemera, mostly concerned with Oxfordshire history. This practice was continued by others at least up to 1929.
The volumes came to Oxfordshire History Centre as part of the 'Davenport Library' of secondary sources. The contents of the volumes was fully indexed by personal name, place name, and subject, and this index is included in the collection at P25/MS1/10. Catalogued by Hannah Jones, March 2017.