Charles Marshall Hole (1822 -1916)

C.M. Hole formed a partnership with Arthur Fisher and Francis Stanbury Dayman in the mid-19th Century. He was very active in his civic duties, being Clerk to the Union Workhouse, Clerk to the Guardians and Assessment Committee, Clark to the Trustees of the Market and Exe Bridge Lands and to the Charity Trustees of the Borough.  He was Captain of the Volunteer Rifle Corps, Registrar and High Bailiff of the County Court and Clerk to the Hospital Board and helped to establish the museum in Tiverton. Hole was the longest-serving Town Clerk at one stage in the whole country, holding office for 44 years and being awarded the Freedom of the Borough of Tiverton, a rare honour. 

Historical Footnote: His son, Lt-Col Hugh Marshall Hole, went to South Africa, working with a firm of solicitors in Kimberley where he met Cecil John Rhodes in 1889. He became a good friend of Rhodes, and was First Clerk to the newly formed British South Africa Company.  He became Private Secretary to Sir Leander Starr Jameson in Mashonaland (Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe) and officiated at the first marriage ceremony in his capacity as Chief Magistrate of the capital, Salisbury (now Harare).  He took an active part in the fighting of the Mashona rebellion and served in the Boer War with the Southern Rhodesia Volunteers.  He is famous for issuing the "Marshall Hole" currency in Bulawayo which helped to find a way around the lack of money after the war.  When Cecil Rhodes died in 1902, he helped to arrange part of his elaborate funeral procession in Bulawayo, prior to the internment at the Matopos Hills.  He had many other distinguished  appointments and was awarded the Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael & St George in 1924, as well as being a well-respected author of many books about the history of Southern Rhodesia.