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Auction: 9033 - Orders, Decorations, Campaign Medals & Militaria
Lot: 87

A Poignant Great War Casualty Group of Three to Second Lieutenant The Rev. G.H. Merrikin, 1/2Battalion London Regiment, Killed in Action 27.8.1918, After Rescuing Eight of Nine Wounded Men Stranded in No Mans Land, He Was Shot Through the Heart Going Back For the Last Man 1914-15 Star (42178 Pte. G.H. Merriken. [sic] R.A.M.C.); British War and Victory Medals (2.Lieut. G.H. Merrikin), good very fine or better, with Officers´ Relatives War Report, Application for Pension from recipient´s wife, dated 11.10.1918 Estimate £ 250-300 Second Lieutenant The Rev. George Houlden Merrikin, born Louth Lincolnshire, 1878; his father was an auctioneer by profession; privately educated at Bedford House, Oxford, and Ely Theological College; prior to the Great War Merrikin was Chaplain at Wellingborough School; Curate at Dulwich College and Precentor at Bristol Cathedral; enlisted as Private and Stretcher Bearer Royal Army Medical Corps, 19.10.1914; served with the Corps during the Great War in the French theatre of War, from 19.1.1915; posted to the Officers Cadet Battalion, Trinity College, Cambridge, October 1917; commissioned Second Lieutenant 1/2nd London Regiment, 7.1.1918; joined his battalion in France, 29.4.1918; served with the battalion during the 2nd Battle of Arras, and was killed in action 27.8.1918, ´under most heroic circumstances he met his death at a spot between Croisilles and Henin-sur-Cojeul, while going out in broad daylight to the German trenches to rescue eight or nine of our own wounded. He succeeded in saving eight men, and when going to save the remainder was shot through the heart´; he is buried in Summit Trench Cemetery, Croisilles, France.

Sold for
£500