A half length seated studio portrait of Eldred Mowbray Cole (1811-?1876). Cole was educated at Westminster and commissioned into the Royal Irish Fusiliers (87th Foot) in 1828, serving with them in Ireland and Mauritius until 1836. He arrived at the Cape in 1838 intending to farm but lost most of his stock in a fire in Port Elizabeth. He was Civil Commissioner in Somerset East for a period in the mid 1840s and Tambrookie Commissioner from 1847-1849, taking up the Civil Commissionership and magistracy at Albert Cohen when this latter post was abolished. He became Magistrate at Caledon in 1858 and was colonial Auditor General from 1859-1875.