Digest of stories from The Luton News: Thursday, May 3rd, 1917.

• Luton Corn Exchange - scene of a mass meeting of disgruntled building workers in April 1917.

Wartime rises in the cost of living due to food supply shortages created by German submarine attacks on merchant shipping, for example, coupled with a rise in trade unionism, was beginning to lead to industrial unrest that would have a dramatic climax in Luton in 1919.

At the Luton Corn Exchange on Saturday evening there was a mass meeting called by the Luton and District Building Trades Committee to consider the refusal of the Luton master builders to meet the demands of their employees for a 2½d an hour increase in wages.

Mr H. Haddon, Secretary of the Building Trades Committee, said that although the prices of foodstuffs had risen rapidly members had only received a 1d an hour increase since the outbreak of war. They must have more, for it was impossible for a man with a family to live on 9½d an hour, without over time rates of pay.

The master builders had refused to entertain an increase and to implement other codes of practice, including working hours, and the Industrial Commissioners had been asked to arbitrate.

Mr Bancroft, an Operative House and Ship Painters and Decorators organiser, said employers were making great profits, but the employees were not sharing in them. They were not going to starve, and they would make the employers realise that they had a right. So long as they were prepared to stick together they would be successful.

Mr Walker, of the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners, said this was the first time that Bedfordshire men had taken concerted action. The employers had wanted the men to be patriotic and work overtime on the ordinary scale of pay, but the butcher and baker would not listen if they asked them to be patriotic and sell their goods at cost price.

Mr C. A. Gibson, a Workers' Union organiser, said that before the war there was a hot discussion as to a minimum wage, and the Board of Trade's figure was 30 shillings. Since then the price of foodstuffs had advanced to such an extent that on the same scale the minimum wage at present would be £2 10s. Workers were getting an average 35s a week, which was 15s below the Board of Trade's minimum.

It was a disgrace to the Trades Union that since the war they had lost the right to strike. Luton men must put some fight and pluck into their trades union work for, even after the war was over, the prices for commodities would keep up, and wages would have to also.

• On Saturday afternoon a little boy of six years, named Aubrey Lawrence, whos parents reside at 68 Russell Rise, was on the bank of Wardown Lake with a companion when he slipped and fell into the water. His companion, Sidney Gutteridge, procured a stick and by this means pulled the boy out. Some soldiers who were boating quickly came to the rescue nd took the unconscious lad into the boat-house, where a fire was kindled in a pail and means taken to restore breathing. These were happily successful after half-an-hour, and some ladies who had children in prams kindly giving up their rugs and blankets, he was wrapped up and promptly conveyed home.

• It is of interest to note that Mr W. P. Day, the well-known Luton artist, has again been successful at the Royal Academy. He has had one of his paintings hung on the line for the forthcoming season. It is a lifelike portrait of Capt G. Lance, of the Border Regiment, who is at present stationed in Luton. It is a three-quarter length portrait, the sitter being in field service uniform.

• Early on Tuesday evening tramcar No 6 was proceeding down Chapel Street when a horse and cart belonging to Mr James Pollard came out of Regent Street right in front of the tram.. The motorman, George Walker, promptly applied his brakes, but the front of the tram struck the shafts of the cart and spun the horse and vehicle round. Fortunately, no personal injury was sustained and the only material damage was a slight denting of the front of the tram.

• In connection with the death of Pte Frederick Allen, elder son of Mr and Mrs Allen, of 63 Havelock Road, Luton, who was killed by a shell as he left his shelter to remove a stretcher case to a position of greater safety, the parents have received a communication from Lord Derby, conveying the sympathy of the King and Queen, and yesterday they received a personal letter of sympathy from the Duke of Bedford at Woburn Abbey.

• Pte N. Hood, of Oak Road [now Oakley Road], Leagrave, is another prisoner of war to be added to Luton's list. He enlisted in the East Kent Regiment last June, and went to te Front last October, being taken prisoner on November 18th. He was also badly wounded in the right arm, and fears that he will not again have complete use of it. He was a plumber and decorator, married with two children.

• The funeral of the late Pte Percy James Osborn, aged 27, whose home is at 195 Dunstable Road, Luton, took place at the General Cemetery on Friday. Having been gassed and wounded in the battle of the Somme and spending time in a New Zealand Stationary Hospital in France, he was discharged from the Army last Christmas after being continuously ill. About a fortnight ago bronchitis set in and he died on Sunday, April 22nd.

• Reginald Smith, of Stopsley Green, has been brought to Blighty having sustained a severe wound under his knee. And Fred Webb, also from Stopsley, is lying at Cambridge Hospital, Aldershot, and his shrapnel wounds in his chest, arm and hand are most severe.

• Other local men to have died on the battlefield (click on names in yellow for more detail): Pte Harry Bumstead (R.A.M.C), 42 Castle Street, Luton; Drummer Jack Copley (Beds Regiment), Danesbury House, Old Bedford Road, Luton; Pte Jack Worboys (Royal Fusiliers), 68 Tavistock Street, Luton; Trooper Thomas Pipkin (Royal Lancers), 42 Cardigan Street, Luton; Pte Harry Steer (Beds Regiment), 144 Baker Street, Luton; Acting Corporal David Dilley (Beds Regiment), 8 Milton Road, Luton; Gunner William Cheshire (Royal Field Artillery), 162 Dallow Road, Luton.