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William Cole (1844-1922) founder of Essex Field Club
The Cole Family
William Cole's ancestors came from Kimbolton, Huntingdonshire, where they had traded as bakers
in the late 1700s (see Family TreeJ. When William Cole's great great great uncle, John Cole the
elder, of Kimbolton, died in the summer of 1801 he left, in his will dated 8th March 1797, his share
of the 'Bakehouse1 to his nephew John Cole (William Cole's grandfather). William Cole's grandfather
and father moved to Islington, Middlesex, shortly after John Cole had been indicted at Huntingdon
Quarter Sessions in 1816 for breaking open the pound at Stonely and stealing his own horse, which
had been impounded for non-payment of debt.
His parents
William Cole's parents were Julius William Cole (1799-1865) gentleman, a bachelor of Islington,
and Frances Love (1809-1884), spinster of Clerkenwell. They were married by licence at St. James's
Church Clerkenwell on 22nd October 1826. William Cole was born on 11th February 1844 at 49
Cloudsley Terrace, Islington. He was their sixth son. His mother was a grand-daughter of John Love,
tenant farmer of Crostwick Hall, North Walsham, Norfolk. Julius William Cole, formerly of the light
office Trinity House, died on 28th January 1865 at Tottenham aged 66 (Times 3rd February 1865).
Frances Cole died aged 74 at the beginning of 1884 (Death Register March Quarter 1884 Epping 4a
113).
Brothers, sisters and family life.
Julius and Frances Cole had 11 children, eight sons and three daughters, but not all survived into
adulthood. William Cole never married and lived with his unmarried brothers and sisters: Frances
Cole (1831-1918); Jane Eliza Cole (1846-1920) an art mistress; Benjamin George Cole (1848-
1917) a barristers clerk and Henry Alfred Cole (1851- 1924) an artist. They apparently lived in
harmony; shared similar interests and supported each other. Thompson (1923 p. 169) noted:
"Never was there a more united, more devoted family, never was an elder brother more
loyally served by his juniors. Indeed, we may not unjustly say that William Cole was not an
individual, he was a Corporation; for his life-work was the work not of himself alone (though
he, as directing spirit, obtained the chief recognition), but of the family, whose other members
voluntarily effaced themselves behind the striking personality of "brother Will"; to whom
in all things they deferred, recognising in him the genius of the family group. His was to
plan, theirs, largely, to carry out: his to design, theirs to perform the necessary hodwork
without which the design could not materialise."
The family rented a Martello Tower at Beacon Hill, St. Osyth, on the Essex shore from about 1900
(Kelly's Directory of Essex 1902) and retired there following William's breakdown in health.
An elder brother, John Frederick Cole (1838-1915), entered the priesthood, served overseas in
South Africa and Turkey before eventually becoming Vicar of All Saints, Roffey, Sussex. He married
and had three daughters.
Essex Naturalist (New Series) 17 (2000)