Stories from The Luton News: Thursday, August 19th, 1915.

We participate in the national mourning for the fate of the Royal Edward, the troopship which was torpedoed and went down in the Aegean Sea last Saturday with the loss of a thousand lives.

From what we can gather the fears that the vessel belonged to the convoy conveying the Division including the 1/5th Bedfordshire Regiment are groundless. But two well-known Lutonians were on board and one of these (Pte Walter Cecil Allen) is safe [In fact Pte Allen did not reboard the ship at Alexandria].

In the case of the other, Sgt Arthur Woodcroft, he was on his way to join the 54th East Anglian Clearing Station. Nothing is yet to hand concerning his fate, so we may only live in hopes that he is one of the 600 survivors. [Sgt Woodcroft was later confirmed to be one of the survivors].

• Another Luton family has received the dreaded message of death. Mr W. T. Brodie, of Cheapside and Dunstable Road, on Tuesday received an official notification from the War Office that his son, Cpl Douglas Brodie [2433, 24th London Regiment], was killed in action on May 26th.

• Sympathy will also be felt for Mr Chapman who has not yet received word of his son, Pte H. G. Chapman, also of the 24th Londons. He was also in the memorable charge, and was afterwards missing. Mr Chapman has tried every source since, but has failed to obtain any news of his son's whereabouts.

• Not many amateur photographers attended the meeting called by the Mayor (Councillor Walter Primett) and held in the Council Chamber of the Town Hall on Monday evening to consider the formation of a Luton branch of the Snapshots From Home League - a new organisation set up in connection with the YMCA. The appeal to amateur photographers to give their help was made because of the extraordinary value which little snapshots of home scenes have in the eyes of our fighting men, many of whom have been away from their families for months. The Luton movement was initiated by Mr W. H. Cox [a prolific professional photographer at the time] and supported by another prominent local photographer, Mr T. G. Hobbs, who volunteered to act as group secretary and had already sent photographs of a new-born baby to a Belgian soldier and a family group to a British soldier son.

• Business had not been brisk at the Corn Exchange recruiting centre during the past week. Since Wednesday last week only the following four men have joined: W. J. A. Saxty, F. Chance and A. W. Aylott (Luton) and A. F. Bunker (Sandy).

• The prospect of seeing the Bedfords' Colours carried in a recruiting march in Luton does not seem likely to materialise. The proposed march depended on a similar march being successfully carried out at Bedford, and as that has not been found possible the South Beds Recruiting Committee have had to drop, at any rate for the present, the idea of having this stimulus to a recruiting rally at Luton.

• The Rev J. C. Trevelyan is to preach his farewell sermon on Sunday next at St Saviour's, Luton, where he has been vicar for 23½ years. On Sunday last, after the evening service, presentations were made to him and Mrs Trevelyan, and it was announced that his work since he became first vicar of the parish is to receive a fitting tribute by the erection of a carved oak screen or stained glass window. When Mr Trevelyan came to Luton St Saviour's was a mission church in the parish of Christ Church. Since then it has become the church of a separate ecclesiastical parish with a large church erected, a commodious vicarage and a mission founded in Spring Place. Mr Trevelyan is to succeed Canon Johnson in the living of Yaxham, near East Dereham, Norfolk. Yesterday, a farewell garden party was given by the Rev and Mrs Trevelyan in the grounds of St Saviour's Vicarage.

• Luton shares with the rest of the country in a very low birth rate for the three months ended June 30th. In the quarter now ended there were only 298 births, compared with 367 in 1913 and 350 in 1914.

• Through a collision in George Street on Monday evening between a Co-operative Society bread van driven by Frederick Hoar, of 6 Grange Road, and tramcar No. 8, driven by Percy Edward Pearson, of 3 Ramridge Road, a shaft of the van was broken, as also was a window on the off side of the tram.

• War is not stopping the Belle Vue Band Contests [Manchester] in September. Sixteen bands have entered, but Luton Red Cross Band have again had to drop out owing to the effect which the war has had on the band.

• The employees of the Luton Corporation sanitary department held their annual outing on Saturday, when a party of about fifty went in brakes to Woburn Sands. At Woburn Sands tea was served at the Swan Hotel.