Pioneer William Rhodes, 528165, 488th Field Company Royal Engineers, was killed in action in Palestine on July 20th, 1917. He was aged 21 and single.

L-Cpl Robert John Cecil Moate, 200634, 1/5th Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment, was killed in action in Palestine on July 20th, 1917, and has no known grave. He was aged 20 and the only son of widowed Lizzie Moate, of 23 Union Street, Luton.

Cecil Moate, as he was known, was under age for foreign service when he joined the Bedfords (No 4641) but went to Gallipoli in 1915. There he suffered from dysentery and was in hospital in Malta for six months before being posted to Egypt.

Pte Cecil Harold Blaydon, 200712, 1/5th Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment, was killed instantly in a raid on enemy lines on July 20th, 1917. The 21-year-old was buried in a cemetery behind British lines.

He was the second son of Sidney and Mary Lily Blaydon, of The Knapps, Toddington Road, Leagrave, to have died in action. Youngest son Albert Edward died at Gallipoli in August 1915.

Cecil served as a stretcher-bearer with the Bedfords from the outbreak of war. Like his younger brother he had served at Gallipoli.

Pte Arthur William Purser, 13857, 7th Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment, was severely wounded on the Somme on July 1st, 1916. For the next 12 months he underwent operations in hospital. In July 1917 he was sent home on leave to prepare for a further operation. On July 20th he died in uniform at home in Toddington, at the age of 32.

Sydney Charles Powell was born in 1882 in Luton.

In 1904 Sydney married Lizzie Gregory.

In 1911 Sydney is 29 years old & living with his family at 52 Ash Road & working as a straw hat packer with A. Hucklesby & Co, by whom he had been employed from the age of 17. Lizzie is 28 & working as a straw hat machinist at home whilst looking after their children, 6 year old Doris & 4 year old Sidney Charles. Lizzie's 73 year old widowed father George Gregory is also living with them in this 4 roomed house.

Pte Charles Frost MM, 15525, Gloucestershire Regiment, died in hospital at Taplow, Bucks, on September 27th, 1918, as the result of a gunshot wound that fractured his right thigh in France on August 11th.

He had spent three weeks in hospital in France before being brought back to England and an anticipated recovery. His body was brought back to Luton and buried at the General Cemetery in Rothesay Road on the afternoon of October 3rd.

Lieut Frederick Charles Cook, RAF, died in the Empire Hospital, Victoria, London, on October 9th, 1919, as a result of wounds sustained in action over a year earlier. He was aged 21.

After being transferred from the 2nd Beds Regiment he gained a reputation in the RAF as being an expert bomber and the crack shot of his squadron, responsible for 'winging' several German machines.

Pte Wilfred Tompkins, 57896, 11th Battalion Cheshire Regiment, was killed in action in Belgium on July 12th, 1917. He was within a few days of his 28th birthday.

Second Lieut E. Dixon, of C Company, in a letter to parents Thomas William and Sarah Annie Tompkins at 42 Maple Road, Luton, said their son had joined the Cheshires only on July 11th. On the night of the 12th he was a member of a working party behind the line when a shell burst by him and killed him instantly.

Pte Ernest James Elsdon, 18971, 8th Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment, was reported missing, later killed in action, at Hulluck, near Loos, on July 12th, 1917. He was aged 20 and single.

He had joined up when he was 18 and, after training at Ampthill, went to France in January 1916. He was wounded in the thigh the following April, but had recovered by October and returned to the firing line. He was then wounded in the face and, despite losing the sight of an eye, again returned to action in France, serving in the machine gun section.

Pte Archibald (Archie) Smith, 33872, 8th Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment, is recorded as having died of wounds in France on July 12th, 1917, at the age of 26. However, Capt Saunders, in charge of his company, wrote in a letter to widowed mother Elizabeth Smith that he had been killed in action by a piece of shrapnel on the evening of July 11th.

Archie Smith had enlisted in the Beds Regiment early in the war and, after training at Newmarket, went to Gallipoli, where he was seriously wounded in the head and shoulder. He also had an attack of dysentery.

Veteran soldier Pte Augustus George Baker, 4176, 1/5th Bedfordshire Regiment, died at his home at 23 Collingdon Street, Luton, on July 12th, 1917, suffering from bronchitis, asthma and heart trouble. He was aged 44.

Pte Arthur Fitzjohn, 025045, 96th Company Army Ordnance Corps, died in the Cambridge Military Hospital, Aldershot, on July 11th, 1917, after several months of ill health. He was aged 31.

Born and bred in St Albans, he joined the Army Ordnance Corps in November 1916 and after that was never in good health. He was first taken suddenly ill while on leave at Luton, and he was treated first in the Bute Hospital and then at Wardown. After that he contracted further illness and died on July 11th in Aldershot.

Engine Room Artificer 3rd Class Herbert Stanley Pestell, RN (M7142), was one of three Luton men lost when HMS Vanguard sank following an internal explosion while at anchor at Scapa Flow on July 9th, 1917. His body was never recovered for burial.

Able Seaman Charles Johnson, RN (J/9150), was a man with family living in Luton who was lost when HMS Vanguard sank following an internal explosion while at anchor at Scapa Flow on July 9th, 1917. His body was never recovered for burial.

Born in Stretton on Fosse, Warwickshire, in 1894, he joined the Navy in July 1910 as a boy sailor, probably before parents George and Marjorie Johnson moved to Luton. They were living at 24 Ash Road at the time of his death.