Virginia Woolf

The Dreadnought Prank 

On February 10, 1910, Virginia along with Duncan Grant, her brother Adrian Stephen, and three other “Bloomsberries” hosted the Dreadnought Prank , which led to an official request in the House of Lords. The troop traveled to the registration with a successfully falsified telegram to the warship HMS Dreadnought in an adventurous elevator to Weymouth . Virginia, Duncan, and two of her friends wore Oriental fancy clothes, pasted beards, and were made up black beyond recognition. They visited the invitation of the commander in chief of the warship as a delegation of four princely diplomats from Abyssinia , a member of the British Foreign Office and an interpreterHMS Dreadnought . The fun was achieved: a delegation led the delegation through the most secret ship, the flags were hoisted, and the chapel played in their honor. However, she played the national anthem of Zanzibar , since the Abyssinian was not obtainable. The princely group chatted with Swahili and the interpreter spoke a gibberish of some lines from Vergil . Fortunately, the only crew member whose native language was Swahili was not on board that day.

A photograph of the reception sent Horace Cole, who joined the group, to the Daily Mirror , which published it. ^[10] In addition, he personally went to the Foreign Office to report the prank. The “Bloomsberries” wanted to mock the bureaucracy and the ” Empire ” with their coup, which told them with respect to the name of the ship, “Dreadnought” (fear nothing), which was also a prototype of a whole series of new types of combat ships of the same name, also in the wordplayer sense succeeded; In that sense, it was a double disgrace for the military leadership. The Royal Navy demanded that the instigator Horace Cole be arrested, but to no avail, as the group had not broken any law. Cole offered six lashes on condition that he be allowed to fight back. Duncan Grant was abducted by three men, received two blows in a field and returned home in slippers by subway. ^[11]