The Dreadnought Hoax was a practical joke that
Virginia Woolf and her friends played on the British Navy when they disguised
themselves as Abyssinian princes and convinced the navy to give them a private
tour of Britain’s flagship, the H.M.S. Dreadnought.
The prank occurred in
February of 1910, when the group of friends, which included their ringleader
Horace de Vere Cole, Virginia’s brother Adrian Stephen, Guy Ridley, Anthony
Buxton, Duncan Grant as well as Virginia Woolf (who was then Virginia Stephen),
disguised their skin color with skin darkeners, dressed up in long caftans,
placed turbans on their heads and glued fake beards to their faces (Virginia on the left).
After disguising
themselves, the group then sent a telegram to the navy announcing their
intended arrival at the ship and headed to London’s Paddington station.
At the station, Cole
introduced himself to the stationmaster as Herbert Cholmondeley of the UK
Foreign Office and asked for a special train to take them to Weymouth. Fooled
by their disguises, the stationmaster supplied them with a private coach.
Once they arrived in
Weymouth, they were greeted by an honor guard. An Abyssinian flag was not found,
so the navy proceeded to use that of Zanzibar and to play Zanzibar's national
anthem. Then the guests of honor were taken to Dorset, where
the ship was moored. There the group inspected the fleet and took a private
tour of the Dreadnought. Throughout the tour, the “princes” spoke in Swahili as
well as random gibberish, proclaiming “Bunga! Bunga!” over and over, asked for
prayer mats and awarded various crew members with fake military honors. Adrian
and Virginia also found themselves shaking hands with their cousin, who was an
officer on the ship, but even he failed to recognize them through their
disguises.
When invited to dine with the officers they declined, in their version of
Swahili – seemingly translated by Woolf's brother, Adrian Stephen – because the
food and drink had not been prepared correctly. The group actually feared that
their fake beards would fall off.
After a few hours, Adrian
declared the state visit was over and asked to be taken back to Weymouth.
During the ride home, the pranksters decided not to tell the press about their
little joke in order to spare the navy any further embarrassment.
Always the
attention-seeker, Cole went to the press anyway without telling the others.
Within a few days the hoax was front page news. Upon learning that a young
woman had taken part in the prank, the press discovered Virginia’s identity, as
well as the identity of the others, and appeared at their homes asking for
interviews, which they granted. The public fascination with the hoax lasted
well over a week before it eventually died down.
According to various
newspaper reports, in retribution for their actions, several members of the
group were later abducted by the navy and caned. One of the hoaxsters, the
artist Duncan Grant, was bundled off in a cab, taken to a field, and given two
ceremonial taps of a cane. Cole was given six taps on his bum, though after
negotiation and in the British spirit of fair play he was allowed to administer
six taps to the naval bums also.
The prank spurred the
British military to tighten restrictions on all future state visits by foreign
ambassadors. After the real Emperor of Ethiopia visited England later that
year, he was chased through the streets by children shouting “Bunga! Bunga!”
and when he asked to inspect the navy’s fleet, the admiral politely declined
out of fear of further embarrassment.
When in 1915 during the First World War, HMS Dreadnought rammed
and sank a German submarine among the telegrams of congratulation was one that
read "BUNGA BUNGA".
It is interesting to know that the hoaxters, at first, intended an oven
more elaborate jest. They had meant to start in Paris, and then come over and
take suite of rooms at the Savoy Hotel, and attack London from there. The Paris
floods forced them to cut the prank to a shorter version.
Video Clip with Duncan Grant talking to Roy Plomley in 1975, telling the
story:
The latest update on this story has come surprisingly just recently, when
a previously unknown letter, written by Horace de Vere Cole, has surfaced. The
letter was written by Cole to a friend a day after the hoax. Noting that,
"the idea was mine, but the carrying out was the work of six," Cole
wrote: "The interpreter, the four princes and an officer went over the
ship talking gibberish fluently … We departed to the band strains and the
company of marines drawn up and the staff at the salute once more.
"It was glorious! Shriekingly funny – I nearly howled when
introducing the four princes to the admiral and then to the captain, for I made
their names up in the train, but I forgot which was which, and introduced them
under various names, but it did not matter!
"They were tremendously polite and nice – couldn't have been nicer:
one almost regretted the outrage on their hospitality."
Cole added: "I was so amused at being just myself in a tall hat – I
had no disguise whatever and talked in an ordinary friendly way to everyone –
the others talked nonsense. We had all learned some Swahili: I said they were
'jolly savages' but that I didn't understand much of what they said … It began
to rain slightly on the ship and we only just got the princes under cover in
time, another moment and their complexions would have been running – Are you
amused? I am … Yesterday was a day worth the living."
Sources and Additional Information:
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