On his marriage certificate, Symon gives his trade as a picture frame maker. It must have proved a relatively successful business, as he and his wife and family were able to move out of Spitalfields. The 1901 census shows Symon living at 108 Union Road, Rotherhithe with his wife, four daughters and two sons. The family was even sufficiently well off to have a servant. The Freeman children were no doubt well on the way to being anglicised, having been given impeccably English names like George, Mildred and Cecilia.

Symon's wife Annie, like many women in the immigrant families of the East End, also worked. She was both a midwife - no doubt kept busy by the high birth rate amongst Jewish families - and a wig maker. She is photographed here on a pre-1900 bicycle that she used to travel quickly to the houses of women in labour. She herself had seven children: five daughters and two sons. Annie died aged only 56, possibly worn out by a lifetime of hard work.

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