Thomas William Coke, 4th Earl of Leicester, (9 July 1880 – 21 August 1949) was a British peer and Army officer, styled Viscount Coke from 1909 to 1941.

Early life

Coke was the son of Thomas William Coke, 3rd Earl of Leicester, and Hon. Alice Emily White. Educated at Eton and Sandhurst, he entered the Scots Guards as a cadet, and was promoted to

second lieutenant Second lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces, comparable to NATO OF-1 rank. Australia The rank of second lieutenant existed in the military forces of the Australian colonies and Australian Army until ...

on 21 February 1900.

Military career

Coke was seconded for service in the Second Boer War in South Africa on 26 November 1901, and was promoted to lieutenant on 10 January 1902. Following the end of the war in June 1902 he returned with most of the men of the guards regiments on board the SS ''Lake Michigan'', which arrived in Southampton in October 1902. He went on half-pay on 13 April 1905 due to illness, but returned to service on 8 November 1905. Coke was promoted to

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

on 14 March 1906. He resigned his commission on 6 March 1909, after his father succeeded to the earldom and he became heir apparent; his uncle John, then a lieutenant in the Guards, was promoted captain in his place. On 1 October 1909, he was commissioned a lieutenant in the Norfolk Yeomanry. Made a captain in the General Reserve of Officers on 4 June 1911, he surrendered his commission in the General Reserve on 10 July 1912 to return to the Scots Guards as a captain. He served with the Guards for the duration of the First World War. On 1 May 1917 he was appointed an aide-de-camp.

Later life

Coke was also a Knight of the

Order of St. John The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem ( la, Ordo Fratrum Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani), commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), was a medieval and early modern Catholic military order. It was headqu ...

, and a

Justice of the Peace A justice of the peace (JP) is a judicial officer of a lower or ''puisne'' court, elected or appointed by means of a commission ( letters patent) to keep the peace. In past centuries the term commissioner of the peace was often used with the sa ...

for Norfolk. He was a talented violinist. He succeeded his father as Earl of Leicester in 1941 and was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Norfolk in 1944. He died in 1949 and was succeeded by his elder son Thomas. A recording that his daughter, Lady Silvia, made recounting the history of Holkham Hall was made at the age of 90, and is a British Library exemplar of the conservative

received pronunciation Received Pronunciation (RP) is the Accent (sociolinguistics), accent traditionally regarded as the Standard language, standard and most Prestige (sociolinguistics), prestigious form of spoken British English. For over a century, there has been ...

accent of English.

Family

Leicester was married on 2 December 1905 to Marion Gertrude Trefusis, daughter of Colonel

the Hon. ''The Honourable'' (British English) or ''The Honorable'' (American English; see spelling differences) (abbreviation: ''Hon.'', ''Hon'ble'', or variations) is an honorific style that is used as a prefix before the names or titles of certain ...

Walter Trefusis and Lady Mary Montagu-Douglas-Scott. (Colonel Trefusis was the son of the 19th Lord Clinton and Lady Mary was the daughter of the 5th Duke of Buccleuch). They had five children: * Hon Angela Mary Coke (born 6 November 1906, died December 1906) * Major Thomas William Edward Coke, 5th Earl of Leicester (born 16 May 1910, died 3 September 1976) * Lady Silvia Beatrice Coke (born 19 October 1909, died October 2005) * Hon

David Arthur Coke David Arthur Coke, DFC, ( ;The family name was pronounced in the same way as the name "Cook". 4 December 1915 – 9 December 1941) was a flight lieutenant in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve during the Second World War, and is credited with ...

, DFC (born 4 December 1915, killed in action 9 December 1941) * Lady Katharine ''Mary'' Coke (7 March 1920 – 6 October 1993); Woman of the Bedchamber to

Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon (4 August 1900 – 30 March 2002) was Queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 to 6 February 1952 as the wife of King George VI. She was the l ...

. The Trefusis connection reverberated in a later generation. The eldest daughter of the 5th Earl became engaged to Johnnie Althorp, later father to Princess Diana;

his father His or HIS may refer to: Computing * Hightech Information System, a Hong Kong graphics card company * Honeywell Information Systems * Hybrid intelligent system * Microsoft Host Integration Server Education * Hangzhou International School, in ...

objected to the match on the grounds of "mad blood", a reference to the institutionalised relatives of the queen, and the engagement was broken off. (Much later, the director of the Murdoch Children's Research Institute thought that a genetic disease in the Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis family may have killed male members of the family in early childhood and caused learning disabilities in females.Bowes-Lyon Retardation Gene May Have Killed Males‎
, ''The Age'', 9 April 1987.) She went on to marry the aristocrat and entrepreneur

Colin Tennant Colin Christopher Paget Tennant, 3rd Baron Glenconner (1 December 1926 – 27 August 2010) was a British aristocracy, British aristocrat. He was the son of Christopher Grey Tennant, 2nd Baron Glenconner, and Pamela Winefred Paget. He was also t ...

and is known as

Anne Tennant, Baroness Glenconner Anne Veronica Tennant, Baroness Glenconner (''née'' Coke; born 16 July 1932) is a British peeress and socialite. The daughter of the 5th Earl of Leicester, Lady Glenconner served as a maid of honour at the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953, ...

Honours

- Knight of Justice of the Order of St John (K.StJ). *

- Queen's South Africa Medal. * Ribbon - 1914 Star

1914–15 Star The 1914–15 Star is a campaign medal of the British Empire which was awarded to officers and men of British and Imperial forces who served in any theatre of the First World War against the Central European Powers during 1914 and 1915. The me ...

. *

- British War Medal. * Ribbon - Victory Medal

- WWI Victory Medal. * Deputy lieutenant (DL) of Norfolk. * Lord Lieutenant of Norfolk (1944–1949). *

(JP) for Norfolk.

References

External links

Lady Sylvia recalls her childhood at Holkham House
{{DEFAULTSORT:Leicester, Thomas Coke, 4th Earl Of 1880 births 1949 deaths People educated at Eton College British Army personnel of the Second Boer War British Army personnel of World War I Thomas Coke 4th Earl of Leicester Knights of the Order of St John Lord-Lieutenants of Norfolk Graduates of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst Scots Guards officers Norfolk Yeomanry officers English justices of the peace