The street (and by extension, the cemetery) is named for William Cornwallis Symonds, a British Army officer prominent in the early colonisation of New Zealand.

[6] Due to the development of the Auckland Southern Motorway during the mid-1960s, more than 4,100 bodies were moved and re-interred into two memorial sites at the cemetery.

[1] Many of Auckland's early colonists are buried here, including William Hobson, the first Governor of New Zealand and co-author of the Treaty of Waitangi.

The New Zealand Herald columnist Brian Rudman has repeatedly criticised the state of disrepair, vandalism, and the presence of vagrants at the cemetery and called for the city council to improve the maintenance.

[1][6][7][8] Although the Auckland City Council commissioned the Symonds St Cemetery Conservation Plan in 1996, only some of its recommendations have been implemented.