Lancelot de Mole

Who was Lancelot de Mole?

Lancelot Eldin "Lance" de Mole CBE, was an Australian engineer and inventor.

He made several approaches to the British authorities in 1912, in 1914 and 1916, in relation to what would become the tank. It was, obviously, ahead of its time; because, in 1912, the need for such a military device had not yet arisen. And, to further complicate matters, due to various bureaucratic blunders, his correspondence was set aside, and not given to the appropriate officers.

Eventually, in 1919, long after the military tank had been built and used in warfare during World War I, a Royal Commission recognized the importance of de Mole's innovative work, and noted the unfortunate consequences of his submissions being overlooked and, therefore, having no connection with the development of the tank at all: that a far better tank would have been developed than the one that the British eventually used, and that it would have been developed at a much earlier date.