Pte Thomas Northwood, 26295, 122nd Company Machine Gun Corps(Infantry), was killed in action in Flanders on December 4th, 1916. He was aged 25, single, and the son of Francis and Elizabeth Northwood, of 118 Wellington Street, Luton.
A letter to Mrs Northwood from the Rev F. Leslin Hilditch, a Church of England Chaplain to the Forces, said a 4.2 shell hit the dug-out Thomas was in, killing him instantly. He was buried in a military cemetery not far from the spot where he fell.
Pte Alfred 'Bert' Walker, 12062, 6th Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment, was killed in action on the Somme on July 10th, 1916. A letter from the Front said the 23-year-old had died while adding dressings to a wounded man while under heavy bombardment.
His home was at 130 Wellington Street, Luton, and he had married Ethel Elizabeth Hewitt, an electric fuse filler from Sheffield, in the early months of 1915. His mother Elizabeth had died in 1898 at the age of 42 and father Alfred, a railwayman, in late 1914 at the age of 63.
Stoker First Class Charles Higgs, K/7429, was lost when the armed boarding steamer HMS Fauvette hit two mines laid by a German submarine and sank in the Thames estuary, off North Foreland, Kent, on March 9th, 1916. He was aged 25 and one of 14 crew reported missing, believed dead.
The son of James and Elizabeth Higgs, of 230 Wellington Street, Luton, the former labourer joined the Royal Navy on July 21st, 1910. He had served in the Dardanelles from the beginning of naval operations there, serving on HMS Lord Nelson until transferred to the Fauvette.
Pte Reginald Stuart Stares, 14809, C Company, 12th West Yorkshire Regiment (Prince of Wales' Own), is recorded as killed in action at the battle of Loos in France on September 26th, 1915. He was posted missing following an engagement on September 27th.
Born in Luton in late 1892, he was the son of Londoner George Stares, who died in early 1913, and Martha Harriet, who died in early 1905. The couple had married at Lambeth in 1873, and George remarried in late 1905, his new wife being Sarah Ann Parcell.
Pte Frederick William Thurlow, 2762, 1/5th Bedfordshires, died on August 17th, 1915, of wounds sustained at Gallipoli. He was aged 22 and, according to newspaper reports, had been a moulder at Brown and Green's in Windsor Street, Luton.
Pte Thurlow was still officially announced as wounded as late as September 9th. His mother, Harriet, said however that she had had had a presentiment that her eldest son had fallen on August 17th. News that he was wounded had cheered her, until she received the official message that he had died of wounds.
Pte Lewis Dyer, 8142, 1st Battalion, Beds Regt, killed in action on October 26th, 1914. He was aged 31.
He was born in Eaton Bray and lived for a time in Totternhoe with his grandmother, and then Dunstable. Until called up he lived with his sister, Mrs Hughes, at 143 Wellington Street, Luton.
After serving abroad with the 1st Battalion, Beds Regt, he came out on the reserve and for about 16 months worked at Mr Frenay-Pirotte's dye works in Leagrave Road, Luton, until called up.
