Cole was born in
Northwich, England, the youngest child of
Viscount Cole and his wife Charlotte Baird. He was commissioned into the
Royal Sussex Regiment as a
second lieutenant on 23 February 1901, during the
Second Boer War, and transferred to the
9th Lancers on 19 October. After the war, along with his brother
Galbraith, he settled in Kenya. Their sister Florence had in 1899 married
Lord Delamere, the pioneer of European settlement in Kenya. On 18 September 1914, he was promoted to the temporary rank of captain while serving in the
East African Campaign of the
First World War. He led an irregular unit known as Cole's Scouts, formed of Somali soldiers and soldiers from the 2nd Battalion
Loyal Regiment (North Lancashire). The unit was plagued by ill-discipline and friction with
regular officers from the Lancashires, and was disbanded in August 1915. In 1920 he was elected as a Member of the
Kenyan Legislative Council and he was re-elected unopposed in 1924. He was a charismatic figure amongst the early European settlers in Kenya and a close friend of
Karen Blixen who later featured him and their mutual friend
Denys Finch Hatton in her memoir
Out of Africa. He was notable as the founder of the
Muthaiga Club, a private Nairobi enclave of the colony's
demi-monde. ==Death==