Diary: New industry comes to Luton

 

Stories from the Luton News: Thursday, November 18th, 1915.

A modest start has been made in Luton with another new industry, Messrs W. A. Maylor and Co, of 294 City Road, Luton, having started the manufacture of fancy leather goods at 73 Collingdon Street.

The company already already employ a considerable staff at their London house, but as the leather goods industry has made very great strides in the last few years and German competition is, for the time being, eliminated, the firm consider it a good opportunity for establishing this new industry in Luton. Except for power sewing machines it is almost entirely hand work.

For the present they have taken the 73 Collingdon Street premises, which were originally a straw hat factory and are well adapted to their purpose. Work is already in progress and a considerable number of girls have been started under the supervision of some experienced hands from London. Should the factory be successful, the firm propose establishing a much larger factory in the Luton district.

  • Saturday was another badge day in Luton, and it was organised for a most deserving cause, namely the raising of funds for the ease of horses wounded in war. The object was to help the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in their splendid work of caring for wounded horses. The handsome sum of £259 2s 1d was realised, including £1 0s 7d collected by young Stanley Verran, seen on his pony (picture: Beds Advertiser).

  • For the third time in a short period the dead body of a child had been found tied in a parcel and abandoned. Straw hat machinist Mr Frederick Groom, of 21 Havelock Road, Luton, found the parcel containing a newly-born baby boy under a hedge in Crawley Green Road, an inquest jury heard. Dr J. W. Bone said the child was either still born or was killed before it could breathe. The jury returned a verdict that the child was still born after the Coroner said they could not return a verdict of murder as the child never lived. Previously babies in parcels had been found in Wardown Park and a year earlier near the same spot as the latest baby.

  • We understand that Capt E. T. Maier, of the 1/5th Beds Regt and of 23 Cardiff Road, Luton, is being invalided home. He has suffered greatly from dysentery, and was in hospital in Malta for a considerable time.

  • Also suffering from dysentery was Sapper Aubrey O. Pryer, of No 3 Section, 1/1st East Anglian Divisional Signal Company, Royal Engineers, who had written to his parents informing them he was in hospital at Gibraltar. His Parents, Mr and Mrs J. Pryer, live at 31 Moor Street, Luton.

  • Mr Robert Elvey, of Messrs W. Elvey and Son, Marsh Road, Leagrave, has just been invalided home with dysentery from Lemnos, where he had been at work on the erection of military hospitals and where two of his brothers are still working. Mr Elvey had previously been working in Dunkirk during the last German bombardment of the town.

  • The poor people in the Union House and the Infirmary as well as the children maintained by the Luton Board of Guardians in the Children's Home at Beech Hill always have a very festive time during the Christmas season. But this year, although festivities will still be provided, the Guardians intend to exercise a careful eye on the cost. At the Children's Home it was decided to drop expenditure of £2 for presents and to spend not more than £3 on Christmas fare.

  • Sapper F. P. Bodsworth, 1292, E.A.R.E., was in hospital in Southampton suffering from rheumatism which developed while in the trenches in Gallipoli. He arrived back in England from Cairo after eight days on a sea that was running a heavy swell most of that time. Sapper Bodsworth's home was at 25 St Saviour's Crescent, Luton.

  • For the first time since the inclusion of Luton in the diocese of St Albans [in 1914] the congregation of St Paul's had the pleasure of seeing the Bishop of St Albans in their pulpit on Sunday.

  • Gunner W. Hawkes, 10696, No 42 Siege Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery, whose home is at 58 Baker Street, Luton, is now in the Citadel Military Hospital, Cairo, with a shrapnel wound He wrote that he received his wound while he was having tea at about 4 o'clock on October 16th when a shell from the Turks burst about a yard from his dug-out. He was sent to a hospital ship to Alexandria and then sent on to Cairo.

  • At the Borough Court yesterday, the licence of the Richard III public house, Castle Street, was transferred from Arthur K. Barker to Ambrose Holland, who has not previously held a licence. The new licensee was warned by the Chairman of the Bench, Mr R. S. Tomson, that he would have to exercise very great care in the management of his house as it was one which had been a little troublesome at times.