Pte John Anderson, 37585, 1st Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment, was killed in action in France on June 28th, 1917. It was nearly a further two months before widow Annie learned from a chaplain that her husband's body had been found on the battlefield by a member of another regiment.

The chaplain wrote that Pte Anderson had taken part in the successful attack on enemy trenches on June 28th and was killed as the Bedfords were coming out of the line. He had been shot through the head. John had enlisted in February 1917 and had been in France only six weeks.

The chaplain added that a party from the regiment which found him had buried her husband. As Pte Anderson is commemorated on the Arras Memorial, however, suggests that the location of that grave was subsequently lost.

John Anderson was the son of Edward and Eliza Anderson, who were living with their family at 62 Burr Street at the time of the 1891 Census, and at 13 Ashton Street by 1901.

In the 1911 Census John is living as a boarder with Albert and Mary Hannah Brooks and their son at 97 Ash Road, Luton. Also living there was Mary's sister, Annie Pugh, whom John married on December 23rd, 1911, at St Paul's Church. Annie was working at the Gelatine Works in Luton and John was an iron moulder at the Diamond Foundry in Dallow Road, where Albert Brooks also probably worked.

At the time of John's death, Annie was living at 84 Pondwicks Road, Luton, with a young child, Amy, born in 1913.

John's older married brother Edward was killed in action at Gallipoli on August 15th, 1915. Two other brothers were serving, one in Egypt and the other in France.