Engraved mess tins : Captain C G Corke, Federated Malay States Volunteer Forces

Pair of aluminium rectangular interlocking mess tins with the steel handles on each removed. The manufacturer's details 'E & Co 1939' and broad arrow is stamped into the handle socket on each tin. Above this is a heavily impressed number '17'. Both tins have been extensively engraved by hand with lettering and numbers on a stippled background. The lid of the larger tin bears an image of the badge of the Federated Malay States Volunteer Forces. One end is engraved 'C.G.C.'. The sides are engraved '2ND. (SELANGOR) BN. F.M.S.V.F.' and 'HAVELOCK ROAD PRISONER OF WAR CAMP SINGAPORE MAY 14TH. 1942. - OCT 12TH. 1942'. Three of the sides of the smaller tin are engraved (in date order) with the names and dates of Prisoner of War camps where the owner of the tin was held and/or worked. They read 'FEB 15TH 1942 SINGAPORE CAPITULATED/ FEB 17TH - MAY 14TH 1942 CHANGI/ MAY 14TH - OCT 12TH 1942 HAVELOCK RD/ OCT 12TH - OCT 16TH 1942 TO BANPONG. THAILAND/ OCT 16TH - OCT 26TH 1942 MARCH TO TARSO/ OCT 27TH - APR 30TH 1943 WAMPO/ MAY 1ST - MAY 15TH 1943 WAMPO NORTH/ MAY 16TH - JUL 27TH 1943 TONCHAN SOUTH/ JUL28TH - AUG 20TH 1943 TONCHAN/ AUG 21ST - AUG 29TH 1943 KINSAYOK SOUTH/ AUG 29TH - SEP 29TH 1943 KINSAYOK/ SEP 30TH - NOV 23RD 1943 KINSAYOK STN/ NOV 24TH - MAR 15TH 1944 KINSAYOK/ MAR 15TH - JUN 12TH 1944 TAMOAN/ JUN 13TH - OCT 5TH 1944 NACOM PATON/ OCT 6TH - 20TH JAN 1945 TAMOAN/ JAN 21ST - 10TH AUG 1945 KANBUR/ AUG 10TH NACOM NYOK via BANGKOK/ AUG 17TH 1945 NACOM NYOK. JAP SURRENDER'.

Clive George Corke was born on Scotland in 1895. As a child he moved with his family to Belfast and then to London, where he was educated. In 1912 he joined the Eastern Telegraph Service as a telegraphist and was stationed at Marseille before being transferred to Suez in December 1914. Although he was keen to enlist for service in the First World War he was unable to leave Suez because his work was regarded as being 'of national importance'. Corke eventually made his way to England where he joined 1st Battalion, The Honourable Artillery Company as a bombardier, with the service number 4356. He was badly wounded in the left hand and arm at Oppy Wood, near Bapaume, France, in April 1917. After the war Corke took the advice of a friend and applied for a free grant of 100 acres in Malaya, where he became a planter in about 1920. After some years he joined the large firm of Harrison Crossfield and worked as an assistant manager on a number of their plantations. In 1928 he married Dr Winifred Mitchell in Penang. Corke had joined the Federated Malay States Volunteer Forces (FMSVF) as a private in 1921. By December 1941, when the Japanese invaded the Malay peninsula, he was a captain with 2nd Selangor Battalion FMSVF. Mrs Corke and her two sons were evacuated to Fremantle at the end of December while her husband fought on with his battalion. He became a prisoner of war when Singapore fell to the Japanese in February 1942. Corke's engraved mess tins record the names and dates of the camps in which he was imprisoned and worked for the Japanese, both in Singapore and on the Thai section of the Burma Thailand Railway. According to his family a fellow prisoner carried out the actual engraving. He survived the war and arrived in Melbourne, where his family had settled, in October 1945. In 1946 he returned to Malaya and served again with the FMSVF during the early years of the Malayan Emergency before returning to Australia permanently in 1949. He died in 1982.

• Knife, fork and spoon : Captain C G Corke, Federated Malay States Volunteer Forces