Pte Walter Ernest Boskett, 32209, 6th Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment, died as a prisoner of war on May 9th, 1917. He was aged 38.

There does seem to have been some confusion on the battlefield. Second Lieut Dudley W. Wright wrote to widow Maud at 99 Ashton Road, Luton: "With great regret I have to inform you that your husband, Pte W. E. Boskett, of this battalion, was killed in action on the 25th of April. He was killed by a shell, and his death was instantaneous. The officers and men would like to send their deepest sympathy."

The Army Register of Soldiers effects also records Pte Boskett as having been killed in action some time between April 23rd and 29th.

However, subsequent Red Cross records of prisoners of war show Pte Boskett being held as a wounded captive by the Germans, and having died at Kriegs Gefangen, Lazareth St Clotilde, Douai, on May 9th.

Walter was the elder son of Alderman Joseph and Mrs Clara Boskett, of Dunstable, where he was born in 1879. A clever cabinet maker and upholsterer, he had lived in London for some years but had made his home at Luton about a year before his death.

He had been in the Army about ten months, enlisting under the Derby scheme. He joined his regiment in France in December 1916.

Walter Boskett had married Maud Wright, from Dunstable, in the summer of 1905. They had one daughter, Doreen Clare Jane, born in 1912.

He is commemorated on the Luton Roll of Honour and Dunstable war memorial.

Maud never remarried and spent most of the rest of her life after the war living at 19 Warwick Road, Luton. She died on September 3rd, 1943, at 19 Norman Road.