Walter enlisted into the 5th Bedfordshire Regiment in 1914, aged 32, at the outbreak of war. He died February 1917, and is buried in Rothesay Road Cemetery, Luton.

Son of John and Emily Smith of Luton, he was married to Nellie Smith, and was father to Arthur and Winnie Smith.

Dunstable born Ralph was the youngest son of Francis George Mantz (sign writer) and Emily Mantz; older brother to James Mantz.

Whilst employed as a house painter, he joined the forces in 1914 at Liverpool aged 21. He survied through the war years, dying on home service in April 1919.

Ted Parker, the youngest son of Frank and Sarah Parker, a bootmaker and his wife from Luton who lived at 5 Tavistock. Brother to Frank and older brother to Emily.

He lived with his wife Lillian (nee Wagstaff), and died on home service in 1918. He is buried in Rothesay Road Cemetery.

Pte Arthur Catlin, 46908, 660th Agricultural Company, Labour Corps (ex-Suffolk Regiment), died suddenly at Lakenham Hospital, Norwich, on February 14th, 1918, after contracting a serious illness. He was buried at Luton General Cemetery on February 19th, 1918, aged 36.

Bedford-born Arthur married Florence Maud Coleman in Luton in late 1909. The couple lived at 34 Malvern Road, Luton, and Arthur had worked at the English & Scottish Co-operative Society Society's cocoa and chocolate works in Dallow Road, Luton.

Hugh Bertlin died at Wardown Park Hospital on the 12th July 1915, aged 24.

He was seriously injured after the motorcycle he was riding was in collision with a car near the Chequers pub in Houghton Regis.

He was taken unconscious to the nearby Houghton Hall before being transferred to Wardown, where he failed to regain consciousness.

George Arthur Meeks died at Wardown Park V.A.D. Hospital in November 1918, shortly after the armistice had been declared.

He was the son of Jesse and Dinah Meeks, a Cambridgeshire Gamekeeper and his wife.

He had 3 older brothers and 1 older sister, and at the beginning of the war he enlisted with the 9th Battalion The Bedfordshire Regiment, but was swiftly transferred to the 432nd Agricultural Coy. Labour Corps, service number 240216

He served with the Labour Corps until his death in 1918.

Ernest Bates, aged 29, of 59 Cromwell Road, Luton, died at Wardown Park V.A.D. Hospital at 2.25pm on December 29th, 1918, from double pneumonia and heart failure while on 14 days leave from France. He had been admitted to the hospital on December 21st with influenza, and is buried at Rothesay Road Cemetery Luton.

 The 1911 census shows us that Ernest was the youngest son of Joseph and Jane Bates, and was born 14 years after his sister Jane and 16 years after his brother John.

Joseph was 50 when Ernest was born, Jane was 45.

Ernest Arthur Cadwell was born in Luton in October 1868, the son of Mary Ann & Thomas, a blacksmith from Ireland.

In the 1881 census Ernest is 13 years old & is living with his family at 36 Brunswick Street, Luton. He is working as a blacksmith's boy alongside his father & brothers Sidney, aged 22 & Albert aged 14. His sister Agnes 19, is a dressmaker.

William was born in Enfield, Essex on 12 November 1894.

In 1901 he is living in Butterfield Green, Stopsley with his widowed father, William, who is a scaffold builder. He has an 11 year old brother Herbert, 5 year old sister called Topsy & a sister Edith who is 3. His father employed a housekeeper at the time called Elizabeth Smith who is living-in with her 9 month old daughter Gladys.

Information via his ancestor M. Ponsford.

Many soldiers in WW1 perished and disappeared without trace. But for the Luton family of Private Harry Wilkinson there was a chance to lay his remains to rest 85 years later.

Harry was buried with full military honours and in the presence of the Duke of Kent at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's Prowse Point Military Cemetery in Belgium in 2001. An archaeologist had uncovered Harry's remains in 1999 in a field near a farmhouse he had helped to capture from the Germans on November 10, 1914.

Son of Alfred George Ives Pedley and Isabella Pedley, of Luton, Beds.

In late August 1917, munitions worker Violet Golding, aged “sweet 17,” became one of the youngest people named to receive the newly constituted Medal of the Order of the British Empire. The award followed an accident at George Kent's Chaul End munitions factory the previous June.

The accident, caused by a detonator exploding as the then 16-year-old leaned over to take it out of a press, resulted in a finger and thumb of her left hand having to be amputated and extensive burning to her arm.

Details imported from Luton Absent Voters list 1918

Details imported from Luton Absent Voters list 1918