Driver Frederick Albert Matthews, 35792, 136th Company Machine Gun Corps (Infantry) and ex-25541 Beds Regiment, died of gunshot wounds at Basra, Mesopotamia, on April 24th, 1917.

He would be the first of three brothers to died on the battlefield within six months - Harry in France on June 17th, 1917, while serving with the Royal Field Artillery, and John (a Military Medal winner) died in France with the Royal Engineers on October 4th, 1917.

Born in 1894, Frederick Matthews was the fourth oldest of five serving sons of the late Alfred (died 1901) and Lizzie (died 1914), of Tipple Hill, Woodside, Caddington. Prior to enlistment in January 1916 he was employed at Stewart Hubbard's dyeworks in Regent Street, Luton.

His family learned that he had been wounded in the abdomen on April 22nd but it was a further three weeks before they were informed he had died two days later. Frederick is commemorated on the war memorial in Caddington churchyard.