Arms of Coke, Earls of Leicester: Per pale gules and azure, three eagles displayed argent[1]
Thomas William Coke, 4th Earl of Leicester, DL (9 July 1880 – 21 August 1949) was a British peer and Army officer, styled Viscount Coke from 1909 to 1941.
Coke was seconded for service in the Second Boer War in South Africa on 26 November 1901,[3] and was promoted to lieutenant on 10 January 1902.[4][5] 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.[6] He went on half-pay on 13 April 1905 due to illness,[7] but returned to service on 8 November 1905.[8]
Coke was promoted to captain on 14 March 1906.[9] 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.[10] On 1 October 1909, he was commissioned a lieutenant in the Norfolk Yeomanry.[11] Made a captain in the General Reserve of Officers on 4 June 1911,[12] he surrendered his commission in the General Reserve on 10 July 1912 to return to the Scots Guards as a captain.[13] He served with the Guards for the duration of the First World War. On 1 May 1917 he was appointed an aide-de-camp.[14]
A recording that his daughter, Lady Silvia, made at the age of 90 recounting the history of Holkham Hall is a British Library exemplar of the conservative received pronunciation accent of English.[16]
Leicester was married on 2 December 1905 to Marion Gertrude Trefusis, daughter of Colonel the Hon. 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:[17]
Hon Angela Mary Coke (born 6 November 1906, died December 1906)