Mavis Wheeler (née Mabel Winifred Mary Wright, also known as Mavis Cole, born 1908, died 14 October 1970)[1] was an artist's model, the mistress of painter Augustus John, and the wife of prankster Horace de Vere Cole and archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler.

She also met John's friend, the eccentric Irish prankster William Horace de Vere Cole.

[7][8] In July 1954, Wheeler was arrested for shooting and seriously wounding Lord Vivian at her country home, Pilgrim Cottage, at Potterne, Wiltshire.

Giving evidence from his hospital bed in Devizes, Lord Vivian said he was shot while climbing in a window, having lost the key.

[9] Wheeler was found not guilty of attempted murder and shooting with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

[11] According to English socialite Nicky Haslam, Wheeler and Lord Vivian got back together after she was released from prison, and "they lived together happily ever after".

[1] Tristan de Vere Cole, with author Roderic Owen, wrote a biography of Wheeler, Beautiful and Beloved, (published by Hutchinson, London, 1974), in which his mother was described as a "warm and impulsive woman, the friend and confidante of many of the most fascinating people of the 1930s, the glory and the victim of a social system now vanished.