Thomas William Coke, 4th Earl of Leicester (9 July 1880 – 21 August 1949), styled Viscount Coke from 1909 to 1941, was a British Army officer and hereditary peer.
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Early life
Coke was the son of Thomas William Coke, 3rd Earl of Leicester, and Hon. Alice Emily White. Educated at Eton and Sandhurst, he entered the Scots Guards as a cadet, and was promoted to second lieutenant on 21 February 1900.
Military career
Coke was seconded for service in the Second Boer War in South Africa on 26 November 1901, and was promoted to lieutenant on 10 January 1902. Following the end of the war in June 1902 he returned with most of the men of the guards regiments on board the SS Lake Michigan, which arrived in Southampton in October 1902. He went on half-pay on 13 April 1905 due to illness, but returned to service on 8 November 1905.
Coke was promoted to captain on 14 March 1906. He resigned his commission on 6 March 1909, after his father succeeded to the earldom and he became heir apparent; his uncle John, then a lieutenant in the Guards, was promoted captain in his place. On 1 October 1909, he was commissioned a lieutenant in the Norfolk Yeomanry. Made a captain in the General Reserve of Officers on 4 June 1911, he surrendered his commission in the General Reserve on 10 July 1912 to return to the Scots Guards as a captain. He served with the Guards for the duration of the First World War. On 1 May 1917 he was appointed an aide-de-camp.