Lancelot de Mole

Lore & Background

De Mole was the eldest of five children of William Frederick de Mole, an architect and surveyor, and Emily de Mole, née Moulden, born in Willunga, South Australia. His family moved to Victoria when he was seven, and he was educated at Melbourne Church of England Grammar School until 1891, then at Berwick Grammar School. After leaving school he trained as an engineering draftsman.

He married Harriet Josephine Walter on 21 July 1915. He volunteered for overseas service with the Australian Imperial Force, was rejected as medically unfit for three years, and was finally accepted on 26 September 1917. He served with the 10th Battalion in France and spent the last months of the war in hospital after contracting influenza.

Reader's Guide

In 1911, while working as a surveyor in Western Australia, de Mole began working on ideas for tracked vehicles, including a tracked armoured fighting vehicle submitted to the British War Office in 1912. In June 1913, he received a reply that his idea had been rejected. He wrote to the British Munitions Inventions Department on 19 June 1919 seeking remuneration. The Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors, conducted by Mr Justice Sargant, investigated his claims among others.

The commission's Report stated that de Mole was 'entitled to the greatest credit for having made and reduced to practical shape as far back as the year 1912 a very brilliant invention which anticipated and in some respects surpassed that actually put into use in the year 1916.' However, the commission was unable to recommend an award because no causal connection could be shown between his invention and the government's use of similar inventions. He was asked to supply a detailed statement of his expenditure and was reimbursed in the sum of £987. He was made an honorary corporal in 1919, and early in 1920 it was announced that he had been appointed a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE).

Did You Know?

• De Mole's scale model is held at the Australian War Memorial.
• The Royal Commission noted that de Mole's invention was 'in advance of its time' and that the need for such a military device had not yet arisen in 1912.