Diary: Lutonians lost in troopship sinking

Digest of stories from The Luton News: Thursday, May 10th, 1917.

Ptes Scoats (left) and Glenister

  • Pte Cyril Scoats (left) and Pte Stanley Glenister

A number of Luton parents little guessed when reading of the torpedoing of the troopship Arcadian, and the loss of so many lives, that their own sons were on board the vessel. This fact has come to hand in the sad intimation that two of those local lads have been drowned.

News has since come through that Pte Cyril Scoats, aged 21, son of Mr and Mrs Scoats, 70 Burr Street, and Pte Stanley Glenister, aged 21, son of Mr and Mrs Glenister, Adelaide Terrace, are missing and believed to have been drowned. Little hope is entertained of their having been saved.

Among the saved are two brothers, Ptes Holdstock, of Holly Walk, and Pte Parsons, of Hastings Street.

Mr and Mrs Scoats received a telegram from Aldershot stating that Pte Scoats was believed to have been drowned on April 15th, the day on which the Arcadian went down, and a similar telegram was received by Mrs Glenister, following by a letter from the War Office saying that Pte Glenister was believed to have drowned when the Arcadian was sunk. No further information had been received, but it is feared he cannot have survived.

  • Mr Fensome, a Leagrave farmer, asked for the protection of the Bench at the Luton Divisional Court on Monday against munition workers who walk through his fields and do damage to the hay. He said there were about 50 trespassers. They left the footpath and walked over the crops. He had tried to get names and addresses but they refused to give them.

  • The new Chief Constable of Luton, Mr Charles Griffin, took his place at the Borough Court yesterday for the first time. The Mayor heartily welcomed Mr Griffin and appealed to the officers of the force to cordially welcome their Chief,to be as loyal to him as they had been to the late Chief [David Teale], and to at all times maintain the efficiency of the force.

  • Mr George Worthington Smith, of Dunstable, has presented to Luton Public Library his "Notes on the Palaeolithic Floor near Caddington". The Public Libraries Committee recorded their appreciation of the gift.

  • That the British successes report from France are not being achieved without considerable sacrifice is shown by the many local men figuring among the killed and wounded. Among those reported killed are Pte Leonard Anderson (Beds Regiment), 57 Russell Rise; Pte William Stanford (Beds Regiment), 38 Whitby Road, Luton; Pte Pte Frederick Gurney (Beds Regiment), 48 Hartley Road, Luton; Pte Arthur Dillingham (Beds Regiment), 14 Dudley Street, Luton; Pte Arthur Wright (Beds Regiment), 6 Clarendon Road, Luton; Rifleman Horace Bates (London Rifles), 57 Buxton Road, Luton; Pte George Folks (Beds Regiment), 20 Salisbury Road, Luton; Pte Walter Catlin (R.A.M.C.), 65 Clarendon Road, Luton.

  • Particulars are to hand of the death Sapper George William Salt, who was 34 years of age and had recently been discharged from the Army after training at Christchurch with the Royal Engineers. On April 17th he went to Hitchin to visit his mother and was taken seriously ill. The following day he was removed to Cambridge Military Hospital but death unfortunately ensued on the journey. The malady proved to be the dreaded spotted fever. Sapper Salt live with his wife at 2 Stanley Street, Luton.

  • Fishmonger Mr W. Gray, of Castle Street, Luton, who was informed that his son, Pte Sydney Gray, was wounded and in the Naarich Schools Hospital, Cairo, was informed two days later that his son had died. Mr Gray cabled for confirmation and, to his great relief, received on Tuesday afternoon the following telegram from Warley: "Error. Doing well."

  • Pte E. Plummer (Beds Regiment), of 31 Milton Road, Luton, who was wounded during heavy fighting last September and again by shrapnel on April 24th near Arras, is now in Sheffield Hospital making satisfactory progress. He was formerly employed by Webb & Baker. [Pte Plummer survived and was demobilised in January 1919.]

  • The Rev J. L. White, a former assistant curate at Luton Parish Church and now a forces chaplain, wrote to the parents of Pte Haydn Harold Hawkes, of 23 Highbury Road, Luton, to say their son had been admitted into a London hospital with wounds to the jaw and left thigh. He said he would take a special interest in the former Waller Street schoolboy.

  • Pte G. J. Bent, of Bedfordshire Regiment, was making a slow recovery in a hospital in the north of England after being wounded on the left side. His wife and son live at 37 Langley Road and his parents at 34 Albion Street, Luton.