Walter Vivian Cole [also known as Vivian Cole; and as Wally Cole] was born in London, England on 21 January 1913. Between 1929 and 1936 he was awarded special talent scholarships to study first at Woolwich Polytechnic and then at Central School of Arts and Crafts in London where he was taught by John Skeaping. He subsequently worked as a sculptor and studio potter and in 1932 his first solo exhibition was held at the Bloomsbury Gallery in London. Possibly as a result of the success of the exhibition, Julian Huxley, secretary of the Zoological Society of London, commissioned Cole to create a series of enamel-painted stoneware tiles to mark the cages of the bird house at Regent's Park Zoo. In 1936 he began working as an assistant to Eric Kennington, collaborating with him in making the figure of Athene for the façade of Liverpool University Library.

During World War Two he served as a Captain in the Royal Engineers and worked in the Camouflage Unit. Following the war, he joined the staff of the Council of Industrial Design and was involved in the organisation of the Britain Can Make It exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London in 1946.

In 1947, with his brother, John Cole, he restarted the Belle Vue Pottery in Rye Sussex which the they renamed Rye Pottery.

He taught in the Industrial Design Department at Central School of Arts and Crafts. He was a member of the Arts & Crafts Exhibition Society, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the National Society of Painters, Sculptors, Engravers and Potters In the 1950s he was involved in setting up the Craftsmen Potters Association. He died in St. Leonards, East Sussex on 19 January 1999.

_{Text source: Art History Research net (AHR net)}