Lancelot de Mole

Lore & Background

Lancelot de Mole was born in Willunga, South Australia, on 13 March 1880, the eldest of five children. His family moved to Victoria when he was seven, and he was educated at Melbourne Church of England Grammar School and Berwick Grammar School. After leaving school he trained as an engineering draftsman. He married Harriet Josephine Walter on 21 July 1915. During World War I, he volunteered for the Australian Imperial Force but was rejected three times as medically unfit before being accepted on 26 September 1917. He served with the 10th Battalion in France and was hospitalized with influenza before the war ended.

Reader's Guide

De Mole's significance lies in his early and innovative design for a tracked armoured fighting vehicle, which he submitted to the British War Office in 1912, 1914, and 1916. His idea was ahead of its time, and bureaucratic blunders caused it to be set aside. The 1919 Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors recognized that his invention 'anticipated and in some respects surpassed' the tanks actually used in 1916, and that tanks might have been developed much earlier if his idea had been properly investigated. However, because his design had no causal connection to the tanks built by the government, he received no award, only reimbursement of £987 for expenses. He was later made an honorary corporal and appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). A model of his 1912 vehicle is displayed at the Australian War Memorial.

Did You Know?

• De Mole submitted his tracked vehicle design to the British War Office in 1912, 1914, and 1916.
• The 1919 Royal Commission declared his invention 'very brilliant' and superior to the tanks actually developed.
• He was reimbursed £987 (about £50,000 in 2019 value) for out-of-pocket expenses.
• At his CBE investiture in 1921, the Governor-General dropped the decoration before pinning it on de Mole.