Diary: Luton Town player wounded on the Somme

 

Stories from the Beds & Herts Saturday Telegraph: October 7th, 1916.

There has been a persistent rumour going the rounds that Frank Lindley, the Luton Town left-winger, who enlisted in the season before last, was killed. We are very glad to correct this, but sorry to say that he has been wounded. He, however, according to his letters, does not share our regrets, for he is thankful to be out of it with his life.

Frank LindleyFrank Lindley (pictured, right) joined the Footballers' Battalion with other Town players in the early months of the war, and went to the Front soon after playing at Luton last season - Roberts, the Town outside-right, being the only other Luton player adjudged fit for foreign service. The Battalion has seen some very severe fighting, and several have been killed or wounded.

Writing to his old colleague of the Town club, Joe Johnson, Lindley says that the Battalion were engaged in the attack on Delville Wood [Somme] and he received a bullet through the upper partof the arm and it traversed down the forearm. He added that the fighting was terrible, and that men who came through with their lives were lucky. He thought himself extremely fortunate to come through with only a wounded arm.

Lindley, aged 26, has seen service with Dundee, Motherwell, Sheffield United and Newport County in addition to Luton.

  • Very real sympathy is felt for Mr and Mrs James Merchant, of 134 Castle Street, Luton, in the loss of their gallant son, Second Lieut Herbert George Merchant, of the Bedfordshire Regiment, who was killed in action in France on September 28th. He was a native of Luton and served his apprenticeship at Eastbourne preparatory to entering the old established furniture business of F. Merchant in Manchester Street, Luton.

  • News has come to hand of the death in action on September 4th of Second Lieut Richard Reeve Emmens, Royal Sussex Regiment, son of the late Mr W. F. Emmems and Mrs Jessie Kerr, of Birmingham. He was engaged for 12 months before the war as a chartered accountant with Mr Thomas Keens, Secretary of the Luton Chamber of Commerce, and was only 23.

  • A Limbury wife and young family of six children have been bereaved by the sad intimation that Sgt Arthur Huckle, of the Bedfordshire Regiment, has been killed [September 18th]. Arthur Huckle was well known in the Limbury and Biscot district and was in the Beds Territorials before the war. He had been in France about a year before his death.

  • Stopsley has contributed the name of another hero to the roll of honour. Mr and Mrs Samuel Fensome, of Ramridge End Lane, have received a telegram saying that their son Pte Arthur William Fensome, of the Machine Gun Corps, has died of wounds in France. He was 28 years of age and previously worked for Messrs Bracey Bros, dyers, John Street, Luton.

  • A terrible tragedy has befallen a Luton munition worker Mr Frederick White and his wife, of 51 Chatsworth Road. At the commencement of their short holiday last weekend, whilst journeying to Northampton, their four-year-old son Ernest William fell out of the door of the railway carriage and was killed. The train was travelling at about 40 mph, and the child fell on to the line, receiving severe wounds to the back of the head. He was taken unconscious to hospital in Northampton but died a few minutes after arrival. The family were going to stay with relatives at West Haddon, near Northampton.

  • On Wednesday last an informal meeting of the new Buffalo lodge, which it has been arranged to open at the Wheelwright's Arms, Guildford Street, Luton, was held, and, judging by the enthusiasm shown by all present, a highly successful Lodge is justly anticipated. Provincial Grand Primo 'Sir' S. Bennett had promised he would attend and consecrate the Lodge the following Wednesday.

  • An inquest was held on Tuesday on the only victim of Monday morning's Zepp raid. The deceased was of the age of 43. A verdict to the effect that William Hawkes, of Stopsley, died from a wound over the heart received from a bomb dropped from an enemy airship at Willian, near Hitchin.

  • Luton Town failed on Saturday afternoon to put an end to Chelsea's unbroken sequence of successes in the London Combination. Despite playing into the face of a heavy downpour for much of the first half, Luton took an interval lead through Brown. Recovering from the shock of being behind at half-time for the first time this season, Chelsea equalised within a couple of minutes of the restart and then made the final score 4-1 with three goals in the last 13 minutes.