WILLIAM COLE, 1844-1922. 171
List Pension of £50 per annum, "in view of his contributions
to the study of natural history and to scientific education, and
of his old age." With this, and a further annual pension of
£75, raised by subscriptions from friends and administered by
a Committee of the Council of the Essex Field Club, he was
able to spend the last few years of his life in retirement at St.
Osyth, where, in a Martello Tower, on the Essex shore, he and
his brothers and sisters had for years past made their home.
During the last few months he sank into a semi-comatose
condition, scarcely heeding what happened around him, and
towards the end needing to be tended like a child by his sole
remaining brother Henry.
He passed away on June 27th, 1922, in his 79th year, and was
laid to rest in the cemetery at St. Osyth.
William Cole was of commanding presence. Stout in build,
and with massive head and full face with deep-set eyes—the
face of a thinker—he struck the observer with a sense of dignity
which inspired respect, and made one conscious that his was a
personality of an uncommon order.
With his social and religious views we are scarcely concerned
here. In politics he was an avowed Socialist of the mild Fabian
type; and he maintained communion with the Established
Church until his decease.
There is one phase of Cole's character upon which we wish
to touch very lightly. It has been thought that he was a difficult
man to work with, intolerant of opposition, and that his many
helpers in the Club's affairs were sooner or later repelled by his
brusqueness: in this connection, the present writer need only
adduce his personal experience. During sixteen years of close
official contact with Cole, once only did any disagreement arise,
and a feeling of soreness develop, and it should be said that,
when the cause of the difference was explained, no more
warm-hearted, generous apology could be desired than was
spontaneously offered by the subject of this memoir.
In conclusion, no better summing-up of William Cole's life-
work can be given than that expressed by Mr. E. N. Buxton,
in a letter written on receipt of the news of his death, and which
we are permitted to quote. "He taught many people to use
their eyes and gave a new interest in life to many more. Essex 
owes him a great debt." P.T.