• Photo: Terry Gatward.

Of the 52 members of the Luton Postal staff who served in World War One, six were to make the ultimate sacrifice – Edward Gatward, Amos C. Moody, William Stanford, George T. Janes, Walter F. Phillips and Albert T. Smith.

Their names are inscribed on a memorial that still stands in the Dunstable Road Sorting Office. An accompanying inscription reads: “To the honoured and lasting memory of our comrades who fell in the Great War 1914-1918.”

The memorial – an illuminated brass plate on an ornamental oak shield - was originally displayed in the Cheapside Post Office. It was designed and engraved by W. Goodman, one of the 52 postal men who served.

It was unveiled on Sunday, May 22nd, 1921, by District Surveyor Mr W. Dickinson in the company of Postmaster Mr Perry. Mr Dickinson said the Post Office had played a large part in the war, especially in supplying men for the Signal Service. They had had to work under great hardship and danger in maintaining communication in the field.

The Rev J. L. Barkway, Vicar of Christ Church, dedicated the memorial in a brief but impressive ceremony that concluded with the sounding of the Last Post.

The memorial was moved to the new Post Office in Upper George Street when it opened in 1923. It was much later moved to its present site at Dunstable Road.

The slideshow below includes the unveiling of the WW2 memorial alongside the WW1 memorial at Upper George Street in 1948.