Researching George Coles

Coles was born in Queens Royalty, Prince Edward Island, the son of James Coles, a farmer, and Sarah Tally. Although he had little formal education he became a farmer and a businessman at an early age. He travelled to England at age 19. There he learned about the brewing industry. While in England he married Mercy Haine on August 14, 1833 and they returned to Prince Edward Island before the end of that year. He soon became a prosperous brewer and merchant.

He first entered politics in 1841 representing the New London-DeSable district in the Assembly. Coles was always a colourful political figure. He is said to have duelled with Edward Palmer and to have challenged James C. Pope to a duel as well. As a member of the provincial government in 1846, he spent 31 days in the custody of the sergeant-at-arms for refusing to retract a statement made in the assembly. He was convicted of assault in the 1850s.

His administration embarked on a number of significant reforms the most important being the Free Education Act and the Land Purchase Act. The former provided better educational opportunities than in any of the other colonies and the latter was a positive step toward a solution to the land ownership question. He and Edward Whelan had laid the foundations of the Liberal party and in doing so created the political balances which dominated Prince Edward Island politics during the middle years of the nineteenth century. Despite being an early supporter of union he turned against Confederation when it became apparent that the project would not solve the land tenure question.

Just before Confederation all his properties burned down. He abandoned his public life and went into seclusion. For a time he was thought to be insane and was placed under care by his family, though modern historians have been divided over whether he actually was insane or was merely suffering from depression. Coles died in 1875 at his home in Charlottetown Royalty.

Coles was brought up in Leyton, East London and trained at Leyton Technical Institute. From 1912 he was in partnership with Percy Adams. Cole's most notable works include Troxy in Stepney, the Gaumont State Cinema in Kilburn and the Odeon, Muswell Hill, all of which are Grade II* listed buildings.

Cole designed several other Odeon Cinemas for Oscar Deutsch, as well as the Carlton Cinema in Islington, and the Regal Cinema in Kettering. He designed the Kingsland Empire in his birthplace, Dalston, of which the ceiling and upper walls survive hidden above the Rio Cinema. Coles was also involved in the design of The People's Palace (1936) later subsumed into Queen Mary College, University of London. He designed the British Home Stores (now Primark) in Rye Lane, Peckham.

Coles made his debut for Kent in 1873 against Sussex at Lord's in the only match which took place in the "County Championship Cup", an experimental competition organised by MCC. On a pitch that Wisden reported as "dangerously bad", Coles took six wickets in the Sussex first innings and four in the second as he "repeatedly struck the batsmen" and "battered the batsmen into submission". He made one further appearance for Kent against Surrey later in the same season and played in one non-first-class match for the Gentlemen of Kent against I Zingari during the same year's Canterbury Cricket Week. He lived in Tunbridge Wells and played some cricket for Tunbridge Wells Cricket Club and Bluemantle's.

Coles returned to India soon after his summer of cricket and worked in the Indian Public Works Department throughout his life. He married in West Bengal in 1893 and had one son. Coles died at Naini Tal in the country in 1903 aged 52.