Horace De Vere Cole

William Horace de Vere Cole (5 May 1881 – 25 February 1936) was an individual known for engaging in public pranks and hoaxes. He was born in Ballincollig, County Cork, Ireland.

Family and early life details indicate that Cole was the son of William Utting Cole, a major in the 3rd Dragoon Guards who died of cholera in India during Cole's childhood, and Mary de Vere, a niece and heiress of Sir Stephen de Vere, 4th Baronet. Cole was a great-nephew of the Anglo-Irish poet Aubrey de Vere. His paternal grandfather accumulated wealth through quinine dealing. His maternal family claimed kinship with the de Vere Earls of Oxford, including the 17th Earl Edward de Vere, who some modern theories associate with the authorship of William Shakespeare's works, and the right to the position of Lord Great Chamberlain of England.

At age ten, Cole contracted diphtheria, which affected his hearing for the rest of his life. He attended Eton College as a boarder. During the Second Boer War, he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Yorkshire Hussars and later promoted to acting captain. He was wounded by a dumdum bullet on 2 July 1900 and spent time at a Red Cross hospital in Kroonstad. Following his recovery, he was invalided out of military service and donated the compensation he received to war widows and orphans.

In 1902, Cole entered Trinity College, Cambridge, but did not complete his degree. After his grandmother Jane's death in 1906, he inherited West Woodhay House in Berkshire; however, financial difficulties led him to sell the property in 1912 to his uncle, Alfred Clayton Cole, who later became Governor of the Bank of England.

As an undergraduate, Cole participated in public pranks, including posing as the uncle of the Sultan of Zanzibar during a visit to London. His most notable stunt was the Dreadnought hoax on 7 February 1910, in which he, along with others dressed in blackface impersonating an Abyssinian delegation, convinced the captain of the Royal Navy battleship HMS Dreadnought to give them a tour.

Cole was known for provocative and humorous antics, such as wandering communal streets with a cow's teat protruding from his trousers and performing elaborate practical jokes on prominent figures. For instance, on 1 April 1919, he dropped horse manure onto Venice's Piazza San Marco. He also engaged in various acts intended to satirize authority, including digging a trench across Piccadilly dressed as a workman and staging street races with a disguised friend, leading to brief arrest.

Other stories attributed to Cole include hosting parties with themed surname jokes and creating visual displays in theaters. During the 1920s, he was sometimes mistaken for the Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald due to his appearance, which occasionally caused misunderstandings. His sister Annie married Neville Chamberlain, who reportedly made dismissive comments about Cole’s antics. There are also accusations suggesting Cole may have been involved in the Piltdown Man hoax, though an investigation in 2016 assigned that deception to Charles Dawson.

Regarding his personal life, Cole married Irish heiress Denise Lynch in 1918 after a courtship complicated by her wardship and inheritance restrictions. The marriage produced a daughter, Valerie. The marriage ended in 1928, after which Cole moved to France following financial losses from land speculation. In 1931, he married Mabel Winifred Mary Wright, a former waitress, with whom he had a son, Tristan de Vere Cole, born in 1935. Tristan's biological father was artist Augustus John. Cole died of a heart attack in Honfleur, France, in 1936 and was buried at West Woodhay. Mabel later married archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler, who divorced her later on the grounds of adultery.