Description
Military Cross, British War & Victory Pair, Captain Walter Ashton Coker, Loyal North Lancs Regt, former Royal Flying Corps Air Mechanic.
Military Cross engraved on reverse: “Captain W.A. Coker Loyal North Lancashire Regt”
WW1 Pair officially impressed: “Capt W.A. Coker”
Court mounted for wear.
Military Cross announced in the London Gazette, 3rd June 1919.
Not entitled to a 1914-15 Star, only the pair.
Manchester Evening News, 5th June 1919:
“Captain Walter A. Coker, 1/5th Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, the youngest son of Mr Alfred Coker, of Messrs A. Coker and Co. Ltd, shipowners, of Liverpool and Manchester, has been awarded the Military Cross.
Captain Coker joined the ranks of the Liverpool Regiment in 1914, and is well known in shipping circles in Manchester and District.
MILITARY SERVICE:
Captain Walter Ashton Coker, first enlisted into the Royal Flying Corps serving as an enlisted Air Mechanic
He went on to be commissioned not long afterwards to become 2nd Lieutenant in the 1/5th Battalion Loyal North Lancashire Regiment on 24th August 1915.
“Walter Ashton Coker from the Royal Flying Corps, dated 24th August 1915”
He landed for service in France from 12th February 1917, and so only earned the British War & Victory Medals.
Not long afterwards promoted to Lieutenant on 12th June 1917 followed by Acting Captain on 14th November 1918.
He relinquished his commission on 24th February 1919 after the end of the war.
With the outbreak of WW2, he returned to service becoming a Lieutenant in the local King’s Liverpool Regiment on 24th June 19140.
On 1st November 1942, he transferred to the Movement Control Section of the Royal Engineers.
PERSONAL LIFE
Walter Ashton Coker was born during 1890 in Toxteth Park, Liverpool, Lancashire.
He was the son of Alfred Coker and Catherine Gertrude (Nee Coker, his middle name). His father Alfred was a “Prominent Liverpool Ship Owner and the Founder of the Coker Line of Steamships trading between the Mersey and the Baltic Ports.”
He started off work as a Ship Broker Apprentice in the family business before the war, and was working with them after the war when his medals were sent to him at the Coker Line company.
Liverpool Post, 3rd January 1920 recalls:
“BUSINESS CHANGES – Messrs A. Coker and Co. Limited, 20 Castle Street, announce that Mr Walter A. Coker, youngest son of their senior, has been elected director of the company.”
He then seems to have gone on his own path to become an Insurance Inspector, in 1939 he was working as a Life Insurance Inspector.
He died on 4th November 1972 in Sutton, Surrey.
