He was enrolled to spend a few years at Exeter College, Oxford but was pulled out by his uncle John Clifton, manager for the noted builder Thomas Cubitt, who had secured a position for the lad in London, which he was pleased to accept.
He left his uncle and found lodgings at Lincoln's Inn Fields, where he socialised with members of the legal profession and began reading for Law.
[3][4] In 1842, Coles lost all four fingers of his right hand in a feu de joie accident and had to be pensioned off, and secured a position as Crown Lands ranger.
Cole was appointed to the new school in Watervale, whose 59 students initially met in the Bible Christian chapel,[8] awaiting the completion of the new publicly funded schoolhouse, which opened on 17 February 1859.
He purchased the block of land between the schoolhouse and Commercial Street, and in 1863 began construction of his private school, with four rooms at the rear section of what would become the present two-storey structure.
[13] Joseph Stear Carlyon Cole (c. 1831 – 15 October 1916) married Hannah Peacock (c. March 1842 – 24 August 1928) on 29 November 1862.