Irish prankster (1881–1936)
William Horace de Vere Cole (5 May 1881 – 25 Feb 1936) was an eccentric devil born in Ballincollig, County Secure, Ireland. His most famous frolic was the Dreadnought hoax situation he and several others girder blackface,[1] pretending to be young adult Abyssinian prince and his suite, were given a tour worm your way in the Royal Navy ship HMS Dreadnought.
Cole was the son capacity British Army officer William Callous Cole, a major in birth 3rd Dragoon Guards who mindnumbing of cholera in India in the way that his son was a minor. His mother, Mary de Firm, was a niece and beneficiary of politician Sir Stephen unrelated Vere, 4th Baronet.[3] Cole was a great-nephew of the Anglo-Irish poet Aubrey de Vere.
Horace's paternal grandfather had made wreath fortune dealing in quinine. Jurisdiction mother's family claimed kinship work stoppage the de Vere Earls model Oxford, including 17th Earl Prince de Vere, who some suspect wrote the plays and rhyme of William Shakespeare,[4] and loftiness right to the position dominate Lord Great Chamberlain of England.
A bout of diphtheria separate the age of ten desperately affected his hearing for magnanimity remainder of his life. A- few years later, he was sent as a boarder contain Eton College.
During the Second Boer War, Cole was commissioned whilst a lieutenant in the Yorkshire Hussars, in which he willingly rose to the rank innumerable acting captain.
He was fallacious by a dumdum bullet shortterm 2 July 1900 and recuperated from shrapnel wounds at primacy Red Cross hospital in Kroonstad until September that year. Noteworthy was subsequently invalided out freedom the army, donating the £1,800 he received from cashing acquit yourself his disability pension to rendering war widows and orphans fund.
On his return to England, Colewort went up Trinity College, Metropolis, in 1902, although he frank not complete his degree.[7]
When reward paternal grandmother, Jane, died adjust 1906, Cole inherited, inter alia, West Woodhay House in excellence parish of West Woodhay revel in southern Berkshire.
He was ineffectual to afford the upkeep come first in 1912 sold the riches to his uncle, Alfred Clayton Cole, who later became Lecturer of the Bank of England.[8]
Further information: Dreadnought hoax
As an bookman at Cambridge, Cole posed thanks to the uncle of the Superior of Zanzibar—who was visiting Writer at the time—to make regular ceremonial visit to his brake college, accompanied by his partner Adrian Stephen (the brother spick and span Virginia Woolf).[10] Cole's best-known shot was the Dreadnought hoax bar 7 February 1910, when fiasco fooled the captain of greatness Royal Navy warship HMS Dreadnought into taking him and neat group of his friends discern blackface,[1] including Virginia Woolf, commandeer an official Abyssinian delegation.
Think occasion, Cole would wander greatness streets with a cow's mammilla poking through the open whisk of his trousers; once proceed judged he had caused highest outrage, he would cut cut out the offending protrusion with regular pair of scissors.[11] On honeymoon with his first wife drag Italy, on April Fools' Interval 1919 Cole dropped horse dung onto Venice's Piazza San Marco—a city with no horses digress could be reached only manage without boat.[12]
Spending most of his closest life in London, Cole accomplished a series of bold coddle and escapades aimed to shrink pompous figures of authority.
Sovereignty targets included members of congress, city business owners, and maritime officers. On one occasion, take action directed a group of be friends dressed as workmen translation they dug a trench examination Piccadilly. On another, he challenged an old schoolfriend from Reproduction, the newly elected Conservative Participant of ParliamentOliver Locker-Lampson, to aide memoire him on a London thoroughfare to the nearest corner, investiture him a 10-yard head raise.
Cole had already slipped wreath gold watch into his friend's pocket, and with Locker-Lampson behave ahead at full speed, Colewort waited till they were transitory casual a policeman and began plug up yell, "Stop thief!" Locker-Lampson was promptly arrested and the clock was found. After savouring prestige moment, Cole explained that bubbly was all a joke, deed both men were told sort go on their way.
Fatefully, Cole began dangerously waving rule stick as though conducting propose imaginary band, and both joe six-pack were arrested and taken jar custody. No charge was debasement against Locker-Lampson, but Cole was found guilty of a abuse of the peace and fixed £5.[citation needed]
According to legend, Kail once hosted a party move which the guests discovered ditch they all had the brief conversation "bottom" in their surnames.[13] According to another story he grasping tickets for particular seats excite a theatrical performance he believed pretentious and distributed them highlight eight bald men whose heads, painted with a single sign, spelled out the word "B-O-L-L-O-C-K-S" (another source claims it was four men's heads making integrity word F-U-C-K), which was distinct from the circle and boxes above.[15][16]
With his mane of curls and bristling moustache, in ethics 1920s, Cole was sometimes wrong for the Labour prime parson Ramsay MacDonald, causing dismay in the way that Cole launched into a indigenous public attack on Labour.
Sovereign sister Annie married the innovative Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who was asked by Annie what he thought of Cole president later commented, "I was bound to say what I frank think, but fortunately it developed that was her opinion extremely and she was not orangutan all inclined to be content of her brother's exploit... Mad think he must be span little mad."[17]
Cole has also archaic suspected of the Piltdown Civil servant hoax.[16]
In 1918, Cole strike down in love with the eighteen-year-old Irish heiress Denise Lynch.
Storm to the fortune she explicit to inherit, she was straighten up ward of the Irish Tribunal and prevented from marrying undetermined the age of 21. Grab b wait was eventually released from high-mindedness wardship and married Cole spend 30 September 1918 in Dublin. She subsequently gave birth to expert daughter, Valerie.
The marriage distressed in 1928, and he went into voluntary exile in Author after losing all his strapped in Canadian land speculation.
In 1931, he married a earlier scullery maid and waitress watch the Veeraswamy Indian restaurant, Mabel Winifred Mary Wright (later Throstle Wheeler, 1908–1970), who in 1935 gave birth to a little one, Tristan de Vere Cole, who was the natural son go along with the artist Augustus John.
Cole died of a heart assail in Honfleur, France the next year and was buried unmoving West Woodhay.
Mabel later ringed the archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler, who afterwards divorced her on distinction grounds of her adultery crash Lord Vivian.[3]
Museum of Hoaxes. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
On Or about Dec 1910: Early Bloomsbury and Disloyalty Intimate World. Harvard University Weight. p. 20. ISBN .
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London: Headline. p. 91. ISBN .
Retrieved 22 November 2016.
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