Lieutenant-General Sir William Penn Symons KCB (17 July 1843 – 23 October 1899) was a British Army officer who was mortally wounded as he commanded his forces at the Battle of Talana Hill during the Second Boer War.

[1][3] His first combat experience was in South Africa during the Ninth Xhosa War (1877–78) where as a captain of the 2nd Battalion of the 24th Foot faced the native Gcaleka and Ngqika tribes led by King Sandile kaNgqika.

[3] On 31 September 1891 Symons was promoted to regimental lieutenant colonel[7] where he would command the 2nd Battalion, South Wales Borderers, until being made A.A.G Musketry in Bengal in April 1883.

[15] He was asked by the War Office to advise on the number of troops required to safely garrison the Natal from the threat of invasion from the Boer Republics of the Transvaal and Orange Free State.

[15] In the end the Cabinet decided to send ten thousand extra troops but they also appointed Lieutenant General Sir George White to supersede Symons as GOC in Natal.

[17] The position of both Ladysmith and Dundee was precarious as they stand in a triangle of Natal north of the Tugela River with the Orange Free State to the west and the Transvaal to the east.

White wanted to recall the Dundee garrison to Ladysmith but because of political pressures from Sir Walter Hely-Hutchinson, the Governor of Natal, he agreed to leave them there.

[19] On 20 October 1899 as dawn broke, men of the Dundee garrison spotted Boer troops on the nearby Talana hill (at 28°6′49″S 30°12′18″E / 28.11361°S 30.20500°E / -28.11361; 30.20500) who proceeded to open fire on the town with their Creusot 75mm guns.

[21] Symons believed in old-fashioned military tactics of close order, where by concentrating troops on the attack he hoped to smash the Boer defences.

The reality was that these formations were not designed to be used against long-range bolt-action rifles, and Symons' brigades would be the first of many in this war to pay the heavy cost of the mistake, as many generals would repeat it.

After a few wasted days, Symons' replacement, Brigadier General James Yule, decided to abandon the town along with the most severely wounded to the Boers, stealing away at night to Ladysmith.

It was Symons who had built a racecourse on the stony plain; who had organised the Jumrood Spring Meeting; who won the principal event himself, to the delight of the private soldiers, with whom he was intensely popular; who, moreover, was to be first and foremost if the war with the tribes broke out again; and who was entrusted with much of the negotiations with their jirgas.