In Depth Articles

One of the most useful things about how this project site has been built is, anything that has been added to this site can be linked together to tell stories and create articles/books. The headings on this page link to further detailed content all about the topic e.g. War Poetry contains written and recorded content, and 'Treating the Sick and Wounded' links to lots of information about Wardown Park hospital in WW1.

All of the content on this page has been written by WW1 Project volunteers using content that had been uploaded to the site by visitors and users. More articles will be added as the project continues.

If the article is particularly rich and interesting, the project team will add extra research to tie it all together.

The Churches of Luton

Religion played a big part in people's lives in 1914 Luton, and there were many different churches and chapels serving the many denominations of Christianity that flourished in town.

Below is a list of Luton's Churches, each item contains a brief description of the building, its capacity, some names of the staff, and sometimes a description of affiliated buildings and social enterprises.

Treating the sick and wounded in Luton

Wounded soldiers would initially have been treated close to the front line, at aid stations, bearer posts and casulty clearing stations.

Patients of Wardown Park Hospital outside front porch

Luton Businesses in 1914-1918

During WWI, Luton was a bustling market town, with a hat industry and trade connections to London and beyond via the Midland and Great Northern Railways.

The Surviving War Diaries of Biscot Camp Luton

British Army War Diaries were handwritten or typed documents providing a daily account of the activities of a British, Dominion, Indian and Colonial Army unit on active service. Sometimes the War Diary was designated as an Intelligence Summary.

War Poetry

The First World War inspired many to create art, war itself being too large a subject to comprehend in isolation. One of these art forms was poetry.

One of the surprising aspects of the Luton WW1 Project was simply finding original and unpublished poetry contained within notebooks and letters. This page aims to share a number of war poems (including two fantastic volumes of Tom's books of war poetry).

Serving the King

In the initial stages of the war, the local newspapers were engaged in publishing endless lists of the names of men who had enlisted into the armed forces. This was probably to envoke pride in those who had joined up, but also to provoke shame in those who had not yet signed up for war.

Soldiers on Salisbury Road Luton in World War 1

Linked are some of the lists of names extracted from the Luton News.

Refugees in Luton

Many refugees from across Europe, but more specifically Belgium, were accommodated in Luton during WW1. The stories in this section relate to the plight of refugees fleeing the Great War, and their experiences in Luton.

Great Escapes

The articles linked here concern many daring and dashing, and in some cases traumatic, escapes from continental Europe at the outbreak of World war 1.

The Writings of Luton MP Cecil Harmsworth

Cecil Bisshopp Harmsworth, 1st Baron Harmsworth (23 September 1869 – 13 August 1948), was a British businessman and Liberal politician. He served as Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department in 1915 and as Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs between 1919 and 1922. Cecil Harmsworth MP

Stories from the Front Line

This article contains links to many stories from the Front Line as told via contemporary accounts from letters and the local newspapers.

Casualty Lists

This section contains lists of the casualties, wounded, missing or killed in action, and makes grim reading...The lists were published weekly in local newspapers throughout the country, and form a tragic picture of the cost of war.

Luton in 1919

Book covering the Luton events of 1919 in bite-sized chunks, from the declaration of peace on June 28th to the children’s event at Luton Hoo Park in September, with the riots in some detail included along the way.

Gallipoli

The Gallipoli campaign is important to the town of Luton, due to the sheer number of Lutonians who were fighting there as part of the 1/5th Bedfordshire Regiment. Casulties were very heavy, and it is regarded as one of the single largest losses of life sustained by the town in a short period of time.

W Beach, Helles Gallipoli

The Battle of Jutland

The Battle of Jutland was fought off Denmark's North Sea coast, involving around 250 ships and 100,000 men of the British and German Navies. It was the only major naval engagement between battleships in World War One, with victory claimed on both sides.

Battle of the Somme

Lutonians killed at opening of Battle of the Somme

"German defences penetrated for 16 miles" and "The great advance - official". These were two of the optimistic headlines with which the Saturday Telegraph of July 1st, 1916, broke the news to Luton readers that what would become known as the Battle of the Somme had begun - 141 days of unprecedented bloodshed that would cost many Lutonians their lives.

Ex-servicemen's organisations

DS&S marchers

The outbreak of war in 1914 was greeted with patriotic fervour in Britain. Young men rushed to enlist voluntarily for a big adventure involving travel - and it would in any case all be over by Christmas.

But it was to be a war like no other that had gone before. Tactics that might have applied to the Crimean War, for example, were now proving ineffective in modern warfare with its aeroplanes, tanks and submarines.

Viewing options

Great War Stories

Luton's great war, told by its people today