L-Cpl Charles Bryan Hobbs, 17138, 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards, was killed in action in France on October 19th, 1915. He was aged 23 and had been in charge of a bomb-throwing section.

Tyneside-born L-Cpl Hobbs was the eldest son of Mrs Mary Robertson Hobbs and the late Mr Philip Hobbs. At the time of her eldest son's death Mrs Hobbs was living at 'Kentville,' 83 Conway Road, Luton.

Philip Hobbs had been a cement works manager at Newcastle upon Tyne and married vicar's daughter Mary, who was 23 years his junior, in 1887. They later moved to Philip's native Essex and later still to Somerset, where Philip died in April 1910, aged 72.

At the time of the 1911 Census Mary was living in Bristol, and Charles, described as of "private means," was visiting the Tantum family in Taunton. Charles seems have made trips to Canada and the United States in 1911 and 1912, but newspaper reports gave no indication of how his mother, at least, came to be living in Luton, a town with which the family had no apparent previous links. Charles, who was single, is included on the Luton Roll of Honour, however.

Mrs Hobbs had three other sons with the Colours. Lieut Gerald Hobbs had been invalided home; Capt F. B. Hobbs was serving in the Dardanelles; and Driver H. E. Hobbs was with the 16th Australian Army Service Corps, then in Egypt.