235984 Lt. Maurice Stanley Craike-Pickering MC.British Army 25th Machine Gun Battalion Machine Gun Corp from:Beverley, East Yorkshire (d.14th April 1918) My Great Great Uncle, Lieutenant Maurice Stanley Craike-Pickering MC. was son of Seth Pickering and his wife Mary Craike of Beverley East Yorkshire. He was born at Beverley in 1886 and educated at Beverley Grammar School. In 1901 he began work as an apprentice Cabinet Maker to his father who was a cabinet maker and shopkeeper in Beverley. He was Initiated into Constitutional Lodge No 294 Province of Yorkshire North and East Ridings and was a Joining Member of Maguncor Lodge. Later he became a Rubber Planter in Dutch Borneo.
Commissioned and Gazetted as 2nd Lieutenant 13th Battalion, Highland Light Infantry 7th April 1915; transferred to the Machine Gun Corps 26th November 1915; served with the Expeditionary force in France and Flanders from March 1916. He was awarded the Military Cross (London Gazette 14th November 1916) "For conspicuous gallantry in action. with his machine gun with great courage and determination, repulsing an enemy counter-attack at a critical time".
The husband of Jean Craike-Pickering of 29 Braidburn Court, Edinburgh, he was wounded at the First Battle of the Somme on the 15th September 1916. He died of his wounds in the Herbert Samuelson Hospital Brighton on the 14th April 1918 aged 32. Remembered with Honour in Brighton and Preston Cemetery. Sussex.
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