Lancelot Eldin "Lance" de Mole CBE (13 March 1880 – 6 May 1950) was an Australian engineer and inventor. He made several approaches to the British authorities, in 1912, 1914, and 1916, with plans for a vehicle driven by a type of caterpillar track, believing that it could have a military application. It was ahead of its time because in 1912 the need for such a military device had not yet arisen. To further complicate matters, his correspondence was set aside due to various bureaucratic blunders, and was not given to the appropriate officers. In 1919, three years after the first military tanks had been built and used in warfare during World War I, a Royal Commission acknowledged the potential of de Mole's innovative vehicle. The commission noted the unfortunate consequences of his submissions being overlooked, and that while his designs had no influence on the actual development of the tank, tanks might have been developed much earlier if his idea had been properly investigated.
Family and early life
The eldest of the five children of William Frederick de Mole (1852–1939), an architect and surveyor, and Emily de Mole (1858–1941), née Moulden, Lancelot Eldin de Mole was born in Willunga, South Australia, on 13 March 1880. His family moved to Victoria when he was seven years old, and he was educated at the Melbourne Church of England Grammar School until 1891, and then at the Berwick Grammar School. After leaving school he trained as an engineering draftsman. He had three sisters and one brother: Florence Louise de Mole (1881–1966) (later Mrs. Feldtmann), Winifred Emily de Mole (1886–1903), Clive Moulden de Mole (1886–1934), and Gladys Rose de Mole (1887–1979). Clive de Mole enlisted in the First Australian Imperial Force on 9 September 1914. He was wounded in action in the Dardanelles on 28 June 1915, receiving a gunshot wound and a fracture to his left arm, and was invalided back to Australia in March 1916. He was promoted to Second Lieutenant on 1 January 1919, and to Lieutenant on 1 April 1919. He was discharged from the AIF in the U.K. in September 1919. Lancelot de Mole married Harriet Josephine Walter (1890–1957) on 21 July 1915.
Pioneering design for a tracked fighting vehicle
In 1911, while he was working as a surveyor in Western Australia, travelling through rough terrain inspired de Mole to work on ideas for tracked vehicles. These included a tracked armoured fighting vehicle ("chain-rail vehicle which could be easily steered and carry heavy loads over rough ground and trenches"), which he submitted to the British War Office in 1912. In June 1913, he received a reply that his idea had been rejected.
Military service Following the outbreak of World War I, de Mole volunteered for overseas service with the Australian Imperial Force (AIF). For three years he was rejected as medically unfit was finally accepted for active service on 26 September 1917. He was assigned to the 10th Battalion, in France. He was with the battalion in April 1918, during the Battle of Hazebrouck, but spent the last few months of the war in hospital after contracting influenza.
Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors de Mole wrote to the British Munitions Inventions Department on 19 June 1919 seeking remuneration for the expenses he had incurred in submitting his invention to the Department for use during the war. His inventions were among those assessed in 1919 by the British Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors, conducted by Mr Justice Sargant, investigated the claims of twelve persons (10 individuals, including de Mole, and one pair) relating to the invention of tanks, delivered its findings and recommendations on 27 November 1919. The commission's Report announced that "in estimating the value of the invention of the Tanks for the purpose of [our] recommendations, we have taken into account not merely the precise class of Tanks which went into action at the Battle of the Somme, but also any modified or improved classes of Tanks which may fairly be considered to result from the normal development of the inherent potentialities of the original invention". Notwithstanding this, however, the Report continued, "we have not taken into account any special or exceptional inventions which may subsequently have been applied and have resulted in substantial extra utility". Before anything else, the Commissioner registered his view that, "the general idea of the use of such an instrument of warfare as the "Tank" was converted into a practical shape ... was primarily due to the receptivity, courage, and driving force of Mr. Winston Churchill"; and, as well, that it should be placed on record that Churchill had made no claim, because "Mr. Churchill has very properly taken the view that all his thought and time belonged to the State, and that he was not entitled to make any claim for an award, even had he wished to do so".
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