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

Set of unmatched cutlery comprising a stainless steel table knife stamped 'WARRANTED', within a garter surmounted by a crown, and 'STAINLESS STEEL', with a cut down cream celluloid handle roughly engraved with the letter 'C' at the end; a nickel silver table fork impressed on the back of the handle 'ALPACCA EXTRA' and 'G & Co' within an oval; and a nickel silver dessert spoon impressed on the back of the handle 'MAPPIN & WEBB 1939' with a broad arrow, and roughly engraved with the letter 'C' at the end.

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. He was imprisoned and worked for the Japanese, both in Singapore and on the Thai section of the Burma Thailand Railway., and throughout his captivity carried and used this cutlery. 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.