Private Maurice Bernal Blake
Number: 14242
Company: 47th (Duke of Cambridge's Own) Company, 13th Battalion, First Contingent
ENLISTMENT
Date: 9 February 1900
Place: London
Age: 21 years stated on enlistment. (Born 6 June 1878 at Tuam, County Galway.)
Trade or calling: Gentleman
Place of birth: In the Parish of Tuam, in or near the Town of Tuam, in the County of Galway
Family: Single. Father Sir Henry Blake, Government House, Hong Kong, mother Edith Bernal Blake (nee Osborne).
Previous military service: No
Description: Height 5' 10". Complexion florid/ sallow, eyes grey, hair dark brown. Five designs tattooed on right arm.
Religion: Church of England
ACTIVE SERVICE
Date to South Africa: 3 March 1900
Date home: 21 August 1900
Service medal, clasps and other awards: Queen's South Africa Medal. Cape Colony, Orange Free State clasps.
DISCHARGE
Date: 31 December 1900
Place: Shorncliffe
Reason for discharge: At his own request
Intended place of residence: Magdalen College, Oxford
Conduct: No documents
Special qualifications: None
Blake does not appear to have been among the 400 men of the 13th Battalion captured by Boer forces at Lindley on 31 May 1900.
Called to the Bar on 6 May 1906, at the time of the 1911 Census he was living at 12 Mills Buildings, Park Row, Knightsbridge, London, and was working as a barrister.
On 3 December 1913 he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Flying Corps (Military Wing), having earned his aviator's certificate in a Grahame-White Biplane. (His aviation certificate states his rank or profession as 'Acting Equerry to H. H. Princess M.-Louise of Schleswig-Holstein'.)
He served throughout the war in the RFC and Royal Air Force, rising to the rank of Flight Commander and serving for a period as acting Major. In that time he flew aircraft including the BE2a, b, c and e, Martinsyde Baby Scout, Curtiss, and piloted a balloon, and served overseas, in flight training schools, and in Canada. He was placed on the RAF's unemployed list on 2 September 1919. He was mentioned in despatches for valuable services rendered in August 1919.
In 1925 he married Australian-born actress Gwendoline Richardson in Corsica.
He died on 19 August 1934 at 42 Grosvenor Place, Westminster.
Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 26 October 1925
Image of Blake from the Evening News London, 27 July 1926.
This page last updated 2 September 2026.