# A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Cole, William John

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​COLE, K.H. (Captain, 1838. f-p., 25; h-p., 20.)
William John Cole was born in London, of which city he is a freeman.
This officer entered the Navy, 5 Jan. 1802, as Sec.-cl. Boy, on board the Buffalo store-ship, commanded by that excellent officer, the late Capt. Wm. Kent, with whom, after visiting India, witnessing the first settletnent ever formed in Van Diemen’s Land, and performing much surveying duty, he returned to. England in Dec. 1805, on board the Investigator, a very small vessel, whose crew, on their arrival at Liverpool, were rewarded with double pay for their exertions and the hardships they had endured in having effected a passage from Port Jackson to the above place without touching at any intermediate port. The voyage had occupied a period of five months, during 11 ​weeks of which the men had been restricted to half a pint of water each a-day. On heooming attached, as Midshipman, to the Medusa 32, Capt. Hon. Duncombe Pleydell Bouverie, Mr. Cole next sailed for the Cape of Good Hope, and thence for South America, where he served in the boats at the capture of Maldonado. While yet on the same station, in the Diadem 64, bearing the broad pendant at first of Sir Home Popham, and the flag afterwards of Rear-Admiral Charles Stirling, we find him assiduously employed at the siege of Monte Video, both in dragging up guns for the advanced batteries and in supplying them with ammunition. During a subsequent attachment, from May, 1808, to June, 1810, to the Christian VII. 80, Capt. Joseph Sydney Yorke, he received a wound at the cutting out of a convoy from under a heavy battery in Basque Roads; served in the ship’s cutter at the capture of a large gun-boat off Ile d’Aix, where the officer of the French vessel was desperately wounded, and three of his men killed; and was severely bruised by the explosion of a fire-vessel, while endeavouring, under the late gallant Capt. Gardiner Henry Guion, to lay her on board a French frigate in the road of Ile d’Aix. As a reward for these services, Mr. Cole, on 18 July, 1810, was promoted, from the Racehorse 18, Capt. Wm. Fisher, to a Lieutenancy in the Otter sloop, Capt. Jas. Tomkinson, which vessel had, however, sailed for England before he could reach the Isle of France to join her. He then, although on half-pay, volunteered to fit out a large prize-frigate, La Bellone, found, on the capture of the latter place, dismasted, and without a bowsprit; after which service he returned to England on board the Entreprenante 10, Capt. Edw. Brazier, and became First-Lieutenant, 17 July, 1811, of the Crocodile 28, Capts. John Filmore, John Rich. Lumley, and Wm. Elliott. In that frigate he was actively employed on the Channel, Lisbon, Mediterranean, and Newfoundland stations; and on one occasion, in July, 1812, displayed much gallantry in attempting, with 4 boats and 62 volunteers, to cut out in open day a detachment of four armed vessels together with a convoy, lying beneath the batteries in the Bay of Faros, on the coast of France, where the Crocodile’s cutter, then under the present Commander Joseph Roche, was unfortunately sunk by a shot from a national brig. Between 1815 and the date of his promotion to the rank of Commander, 8 Aug. 1828, Mr. Cole appears to have afterwards served, generally as First-Lieutenant, and chiefly on the Home station, on board the Rhin 38, Capt. Chas. Malcolm, Florida 20, Capts. Wm. Elliott and Chas. Sibthorp John Hawtayne, Northumberland 78, Capts. Sir Mich. Seymour, John Harvey, and Thos. Jas. Maling, Cambridge 80, commanded by the latter officer. Prince Regent 120, bearing the flag of Sir Benj. Hallowell, and Royal George and Royal Sovereign yachts, as also in command of the Onyx 10. He obtained, while in the Rhin, the thanks of Capt. Malcolm, for his ability in conducting that ship through a difficult navigation, while the latter officer, with all but 62 of the crew, was engaged on a cutting out expedition in the small harbour of Corrijou, near Abervrach, 18 July, 1815 – had charge, during his attachment to the Northumberland, of the Seagull, and Highflyer tenders – cruized, in the Royal Sovereign, as First-Lieutenant to H.R.H. the Lord High Admiral, and, for his exertions during a violent gale in the same vessel, when conveying to Holland the late Queen of Wurtemberg, was mentioned in the despatches of Sir Wm. Fremantle to George IV. – and, when in command of the Onyx, ran down the coast of Africa with important despatches, landed the Governor of the Gambia, and, we believe, brought home despatches and invalids from Fernando Po. From 6 July, 1831, until 1834, Capt. Cole next held a responsible appointment in the Coast Guard, on leaving which service he was presented by the chief officers and others who had been under his command with a superb silver snuffbox ai a token of their respect and regard for him. He further officiated, from 28 Jan. 1836 until paid off in 1837, as Second-Captain of the Revenge 78, commanded in the Mediterranean by his estimable friend, Capt. Wm. Elliott; but, since his attainment of Post-rank, 28 June, 1838, has been on half-pay.
Capt. Cole (who was nominated a K.H. 1 Jan. 1837, and is a magistrate for the county of Gloucester) has had the pride, on four separate occasions, of preserving life to others by imminently hazarding his own – first, during his servitude in the Crocodile, when his intrepidity in saving two officers and a seaman from a watery grave procured him, through the hands of H.R.H. the late Duke of Sussex, a first-class certificate from the Royal Humane Society; secondly, on his passage to the coast of Africa in the Onyx, when he jumped overboard after a seaman who had fallen out of a sternboat in the act of being lowered down; a third time, in the river Thames, where, in July, 1835, being at the time a passenger on board the Red Rover steamer, he rescued two gentlemen, Messrs. John Snape and Gilbert Wilson, who had been upset in a wherry by getting under the bows of that vessel; and again, in June, 1836, When he plunged into the sea after one of the Gunner’s crew belonging to the Revenge, who had fallen from the mainchains. He married, 23 Oct. 1818, Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Robt. Wace, Esq., of Lechdale, co. Gloucester, and has issue four daughters. Agents – Case and Loudonsack.