- Horace de Vere Cole
William Horace de Vere Cole (
5 May 1881 –25 February 1936 ) was a British eccentric prankster. His most famous trick was theDreadnought hoax in 1910 when he fooled the captain of the famous Royal Navy warship HMS "Dreadnought" (1906) into taking Cole and a group of his friends for an Abyssinian delegation.Cole's other pranks included the following:
As an
undergraduate at Cambridge University, Cole dressed as asultan ofZanzibar — who was visiting London at the time — and made an official visit to his own college.Once he disguised himself to look like prime minister
Ramsay MacDonald , arranged for the real MacDonald to be lost in a cab and went to a meeting of the Labour Party to make a speech where he told the members to work more for less money.Once Cole directed a group of workmen to dig a hole in the middle of
Piccadilly . It took a week before public officials had it filled.On another occasion, Cole dared a
Member of Parliament to dash before him to the nearest corner with a 10-yard head start — having already slipped his gold watch into the MP's pocket. When the MP then began to run, Cole yelled for the police who promptly arrested the "pickpocket " and took him to the nearest police station.On his honeymoon in Italy in 1919, Cole dropped horse manure onto
Venice 's Piazza di San Marco — which could only be reached by a boat.Cole has also been suspected of the
Piltdown Man hoax. [ [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/01/opinion/01davis.html?pagewanted=2&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/W/Woolf,%20Virginia&_r=1 NY Times] , April 1, 2006]References
External links
* cite news
author=WES DAVIS
title=A Fool There Was
date=April 1, 2006
work=New York Times
url=http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/01/opinion/01davis.html?_r=1&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fPeople%2fW%2fWoolf%2c%20Virginia&oref=slogin
accessdate=2008-08-09 in the "New York Times "
* [http://sniggle.net/cole.php List of pranks at Sniggle.net]
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