Abyssinian princes
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The princes who never were
How a hoaxer fooled the British navy
The first anyone heard about the royal visit was a telegram from the
Foreign Office in London to the Home and Atlantic Fleets lying at
anchor off Weymouth, Dorset.
It was 1910, and Britain's naval might was unmatched. The greatest
ship of the fleet was HMS Dreadnought, flagship of the Royal Navy. And it
was to the Dreadnought that the message from the Foreign Office came. The
telegram, signed by Foreign Under-secretary Sir Charles Hardinge, ordered
the ship to prepare for a visit by a group of Abyssinian princes. The
navy should fete them, make them feel important, and generally impress
them with the invincibility of imperial power.
The officers of the Dreadnought set to, never suspecting that the telegram
might be anything but genuine.
Meanwhile, at London's Paddington Station, an elegant man in top hat and
morning suit was laying down the law to the stationmaster. He said he was
Herbert Cholmondesly of the Foreign Office and he wanted a special train
laid on to convey a party of Abyssinian princes to Weymouth. He wanted
that train right away.
The stationmaster rushed off to prepare a VIP coach - never suspecting
that Cholmondesly might be an impostor.
The 'man from the F.0.' was William Horace de Vere Cole a wealthy young
society man, practical joker extraordinary. It was he who had sent the
Telegram. And the four 'princes' who stepped aboard the special train at
Paddington were his friends - famous novelist Virginia Woolf, judge's son
Guy Ridley, sportsman Anthony Buxton and artist Duncan Grant. All had been
heavily made up, bearded and robed by theatrical make-up expert Willy
Clarkson. They were accompanied on their journey by an 'interpreter',
Virginia Woolf's brother Adrian, and by joker Cole himself.
The group arrived at Weymouth to be greeted by a red carpet and a guard of
honour. They were piped aboard the Dreadnought, which had been bedecked
with bunting for the royal visit. Nowhere in the fleet could an Abyssinian
flag be found, nor the music for the Abyssinian national anthem. Instead,
worried officers ordered the hoisting of the flag of Zanzibar, and the
band played that country's national anthem. No one need have worried - the
'princes' did not know the difference.
As the group inspected the fleet, they handed out visiting cards printed
in Swahili and spoke in Latin with an unrecognisable accent. Everything
they were shown was greeted with delighted cries of 'Bunga-bunga'.
They were shown every hospitality. In return, they tried to bestow
Abyssinian military honours on some of the high-ranking officers. They
asked for prayer mats at sunset. But they refused all offers of food and
drink 'for religious reasons' - They had been warned by make-up man
Clarkson that if they tried to eat anything their false lips could fall
off.
The ruse was almost uncovered on two occasions. Firstly, when Anthony
Buxton sneezed and half his moustache flew off (he stuck it back on before
anyone noticed), and secondly, when the group were introduced to an
officer who was related to Virginia Woolf and who also knew Cole quite
well. But the officer did not see through Virginia's disguise and,
extraordinarily, he showed no sign of recognition when he looked at Cole.
The royal party hastily ended their visit and, after posing for
photographs, returned to London, where they revealed their outrageous
hoax. The whole operation had cost Cole 4,000 pounds, a princely sum in
those days.
But Cole would pay almost any sum and go to almost any lengths for the
sake of a practical joke. He once dressed as a workman and dug a huge hole
in the middle of London's busting Piccadilly. He kept an eye on his hole
in the road for several days, watching the visits of numerous puzzled
council officials. It was a week later before they realised they had been
hoaxed and filled it in.
On another occasion, Cole was walking through Westminster with a Member of
Parliament when the arch-joker bet the MP that he could beat him to the
next corner, even after giving him a ten-yard start. The MP agreed, not
realising that Cole had slipped his gold watch into his acquaintance's
pocket. As the MP began running, Cole shouted: Stop thief!', and called
over a policeman to search the fugitive's' pockets. The watch was found
and the MP was whisked off to the nearest police station, where he had the
unenviable task of persuading the police that they had all been taken for
a ride.
But Cole's favourite practical jokes involved disguises. While an
undergraduate at Cambridge University, he dressed up as the Sultan of
Zanzibar and paid an 'official visit' to his own college. He was even
conducted around his own quarters.
Another of his outlandish impersonations was when he arrived at a meeting
of leading trade unionists and marched on to the platform to address them.
The audience was expecting a speech by Britain's first Labour Prime
Minister, Ramose Macdonald, and indeed Cole, after spending hours making
up before a mirror, did look exceedingly like him.
The real Macdonald, however, was 'lost' somewhere in London in a taxi
driven by one of Cole's accomplices. Cole meanwhile was telling the union
leaders that they should all work much harder for less pay. The speech did
not go down well.
From:
The World's Greatest Mistakes, 1980
(edited by Nigel Blundell, ISBN:0-7064-2136-1)
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