One of the deaths reported to have occurred at Wardown Military Hospital in July 1915 was that of 24-year-old Second Lieut Hugh Anthony Bertlin, who died after the motorcycle he was riding was in collision with a car near the Chequers pub in Houghton Regis.

He was taken unconscious to the nearby Houghton Hall before being transferred to Wardown. He failed to regain consciousness.

In 1997 the Dunstable Gazette carried a Yesteryear photo, reproduced from a postcard, of the Bertlin funeral, conducted with full military honours at Houghton Regis Parish Church on July 14, 1915. His death had received extensive coverage in the Gazette.

The Yesteryear caption revealed that Argentina-born Bertlin had volunteered to join the Canadian Expeditionary Force during World War 1. He had travelled with them back to England, where he had been seconded to the Royal Engineers based in a camp at Houghton Regis.

His father was listed as a civil engineer living in Hampstead, London, at the time of the 1901 Census.