Private William Horace De Vere Cole
Number: 14272 (?)
Company: 47th (Duke of Cambridge's Own) Company, 13th Battalion, First Contingent
ENLISTMENT
Date: 21 February 1900
Place: London
Age: 20 years stated on enlistment. (Born 5 May 1881 at Ballincollig, County Cork.)
Trade or calling: Gentleman
Place of birth: In the Parish of Cork, in or near the Town of Cork, in the County of Cork
Address: 64 Portland Place, London
Family: Single. Father William Utting Cole, Major in the 3rd Dragoon Guards (dec. 1892), mother Mary O'Brien Studd, (formerly Cole, nee De Vere), of 24 Roland Gardens, South Kensington.
Previous military service: Eton Volunteers
Description: Height 5' 10". Complexion fair, eyes blue, hair dark brown.
Religion: Church of England
ACTIVE SERVICE
Date to South Africa: February or March 1900
Date home: late-1900
Service medal, clasps and other awards: Queen's South Africa Medal. Cape Colony clasp.
DISCHARGE
Date: 31 March 1900
Place: South Africa
Reason for discharge: To take up a commission in the Imperial Yeomanry.
Cole was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the 66th (Yorkshire) Company, 16th Battalion, Imperial Yeomanry, on 1 April 1900. As a result he was not with the 13th Battalion when it was captured by Boer forces at Lindley on 31 May 1900.
He was wounded at Kruisfontein on 1 July 1900 and invalided home later that year. He relinquished his commission on 4 October 1901.
Cole was a well-known prankster, his most notorious trick being the Dreadnought Hoax on 7 February 1910, when he fooled the captain of the Royal Navy warship HMS Dreadnought into taking Cole and a group of his friends, dressed up as an Abyssinian delegation, on a tour of the vessel.
He died at Honfleur, France, on 25 February 1936, and was buried in the West Woodhay churchyard.
The 'Abyssinian delegation'
This page last updated 4 September 2026.