Ernest Vize Symons CB (19 June 1913 – 5 November 1990) was a British Civil Servant who became Director General of the Board of Inland Revenue.
He was educated at the Stationers' Company School and University College London (UCL), serving on the UCL Council in 1975 and becoming a fellow of UCL in 1979.
He became an Assistant Inspector of Taxes in 1934. He was a Deputy Chief Inspector of Taxes, 1964-1973, Chief Inspector of Taxes until 1975 then Director General until his retirement in 1977. In 1975 he was made a Companion of the Bath.
He was Honorary Treasurer of the National Association for the Care of Offenders in 1979. From 1978, he was on the council of the London Welsh Trust (Vice-Chairman, 1981-1985). He was Honorary Treasurer of the Honorable Society of Cymmrodorion from 1980. He was a governor of the English-Speaking Union from 1978 and its deputy chairman from 1983 to 1986.
His daughter is Elizabeth Symons (Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean).
Famous quotes containing the word ernest:
“Put shortly, these are the two views, then. One, that man is intrinsically good, spoilt by circumstance; and the other that he is intrinsically limited, but disciplined by order and tradition to something fairly decent. To the one party man’s nature is like a well, to the other like a bucket. The view which regards him like a well, a reservoir full of possibilities, I call the romantic; the one which regards him as a very finite and fixed creature, I call the classical.”
—Thomas Ernest Hulme (1883–1917)