LIEUT-COL CRADOCK

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 39, 15 February 1930, Page 11

LIEUT-COL CRADOCK

MAN OF HIGH IDEALS

HIS GREAT PERSONALITY

(From "The Post's" Representative.)

LONDON, 7th January,

The Metropolitan-Vickers Club News for December, has a page inset referring to the late Lieut.-Colonel M. Cradock, who was for 27 years a director of' the Metropolitan-Vickers Company and .its predecessor, the British Westinghouse Company. He was intensely devoted to the interests of the company and its employees, and as a firm the feeling is that death has bereft them of one of their staunchest friends.

Writing of Colonel Cradock as a man and not as a company director, the editor says:—

"He was born on 16th October, 1859, a son of the late Christopher Cradock of Hartford, Yorkshire, and a brother of Admiral Cradock, who had a very distinguished career in the Navy and was lost in the naval engagement at Coronel in ■ a gallant fight against an immensely superior German squadron.;

"Colonel Cradock was gazetted to the Durham Fusiliers in 1877, to the Caribiniers in 1879, and served through the Afghan campaign in 1879-80. He retired from the Army in 1895, but joined up iigain for the South. African War and commanded the 2nd New Zealand Contingent, the 3rd Mounted Infantry Corps, and the Bushman's Brigade, and for these services was promoted lieutenant-colonel, mentioned in dispatches, granted the South African Medal with-five clasps, and given a C.B. In the Great War he formed the 2nd King Edward Horse in August, 1914, and commanded them until he was retired in August, 1918. In 1914 he could have pleaded age as a reason for not joining up. Hes preferred military service, and in so doing maintained the best traditions of the county families of England. We' did not know him primarily as a soldier, but we can appreciate and admire the record which he left in every branch of the service with which he was connected as a gallant officer and as a 1 leader who inspired those under him to give the best that was 'in them. We knew him best in connection with the work of this company, arid learnt to admire bis high ideals, his sense of humour, his regard for the value of a man's word, his unswerving loyalty to his friends, to the company, and to its men. We feel that we have lost a man of sterling character whose personality and influence will be greatly missed, especially among thoso who have known him many years. Personality is difficult to define, and more difficult, if not impossible, to convey in the written w.ord, and nothing we can say could adequately indicate the atmosphere which i«crmeated everything which Colonel Cradock did or said.

. "In the earlier stnges o£ his illness and some months before he was seriously ill, he discussed his failing health, and it was evident that he had a strong premonition of the end, but no sign of complaint or regret that this was soon to be escaped him. The impression he left was of one looking the Great Reaper square in the face without fear as ho- had faced in his old campaigns. One learned in those few moments something of the unbending courage which characterised Colonel Cradock in every straitened circumstance of life. He lived a full life, he enjoyed life, he was a good shot, a hard rider to hounds, a fine Englishman, and a very gallant gentleman."