Digest of stories from The Luton News: Thursday, January 3rd, 1918.

• The Barnard Chantry photographed by T. G. Hobbs in 1924.

The significance of the Barnard Chapel within Luton Parish Church produced disagreement between a member of Bedfordshire Historical Record Society and the Vicar of Luton, the Rev Arthur E. Chapman.

In a letter to the newspaper, the Vicar said he felt compelled to say that an account published the previous week from Mr Edwin Craven Lee about the chapel was entirely conjectural and there was no authority for describing it as a Pyx Chapel [a place for the reservation of the consecrated Eucharist or, as formerly at Westminster Abbey, a secure place for newly minted coins to ensure they conformed to required standards.]

Mr Craven Lee had contended that the exquisite chapel was the finest 15th Century Pyx Chapel known. Mr Birkbeck, a leading authority on the Eastern church, had made a unique study of these chapels and had paid a special visit to St Mary's. He pronounced what he had found there as the most beautiful Pyx Chapel of its kind and its period known.

Furthermore, a star-shaped pyx ornament with tapering and wavy points had been found among rubble during restoration work

Rev Chapman pointed out that Mr Cobbe, the leading historian on St Mary's Church, had said "the most conclusive evidence seems to point to the fact that Richard Barnard [Vicar from 1477 to 1492] had the chantry erected for himself alone, and that the recumbent effigy of a priest now resting in a niche at the west end of the south aisle, was intended to represent this worthy vicar, and formerly lay under the groined canopy of the chantry".

Wrote the Vicar: "I am extremely sorry to have to disagree with Mr Lee on a matter so interesting to both of us and to Lutonians generally. In Medieval England the Pyx was suspended above the high altar, and I cannot imagine any need in pre-Reformation times for removing the consecrated elements to so obscure a place as the Barnard Chapel is... To have transferred the elements would have been somewhat to disparage the significance of the practice..."

[Edwin Craven Lee's findings were questioned again in 1927 by then Vicar, Canon C. Mollan Williams, who invited the Council of the British Archaelogical Association to investigate. Their report stated that the carvings had been misread, and the term Pyx Chapel (as in the undercroft at Westminster Abbey) had been misunderstood.]

• The prosecution of prominent South Bedfordshire farmer Ernest Garratt Blow for employing a nine-year-old boy who should have been at school was the main topic of conversation at the Luton Cattle Market among the farming fraternity congregating there. His colleagues were very severe in their denunciation of the prosecution at the Borough Court on Monday. It was suggested he had been singled out owing to his prominence not only in agriculture but because of his public positions. Mr Blow was fined a maximum £2 and also paid the 10 shillings fine imposed on the boy's mother for not sending him to school. From Mr Blow himself we learn that he has already resigned several positions of public importance and resignations had been sent to others, including the Luton Board of Guardians and the Dunstable branch of the Farmers' Union, of which he was secretary.

• Fifteen Luton men were required on Monday evening to prove to the satisfaction of the Luton Borough Tribunal that they were better engaged in the national interests in their present occupation than if taken into the Army. Only one man was held to join the Army, with a three months delay, but very important was the insistence of the Tribunal in sending men to the Volunteer Force.

• We are pleased to announce that L-Cpl Herbert Stanley Gardner, eldest son of Lieut Gardner, the National Service Representative in Luton and district, has been awarded the Military Medal for conspicuous gallantry in the field. He had now spent three Christmases in France with the Royal Fusiliers, attached to the Lewis gun section.

• Many will grieve to hear of the death of Gunner Albert Snoxell (Royal Garrison Artillery), of 37 Dudley Street, Luton, which occurred on December 15th from gunshot wounds. He was in France only five weeks after being drafted there on November 9th.

• The death in action on December 8th of Pte Charles Thomas Wallis is officially announced. Originally in the East Anglian Royal Engineers from the outbreak of war, he was transferred to the Welsh Regiment and went to France just before Christmas 1916. Pte Wallis had made his home with Mr and Mrs Perry, of 17 Wood Street, Luton.

• Within five days the village of Caddington received the news of the deaths on the battle field of two parishioners. On Monday, December 17th, the parents of Horace Austin (Royal Field Artillery) were informed that he had been killed in action on December 6th in France. And on Friday, December 21st, Mrs J. Swain, of the Cricketers, received news of the death of her husband Jack Swain (Essex Regiment), who was killed in the battle of Cambrai on November 30th. The flag on the Parish Church was flown at half mast and a muffled peal was rung on the bells for a memorial service on Sunday.

• In addition to the above, we are informed that the parish has lost another man killed in action, namely Harold Lawson (Norfolk Regiment), whose home is at Chaul End. He was killed on December 11th in the operations around Jerusalem.

• L-Cpl H. E. Goodge, who enlisted in the Royal Engineers soon after the outbreak of war and resided with his sister at 176 North Street, Luton, received head, foot and side wounds from trench mortars while in the trenches on November 13th. He is now progressing favourably at Kitchener's Hospital, Brighton.

• Among the first consignment of prisoners of war from Germany to arrive in Holland is Cpl F. C. Howard, of the Beds Regiment.

• In France recently two soldiers - one in the Royal Engineers and the other in the Canadian Engineers - got into conversation and, strangely enough, discovered a point of interest common to both. Whilst one, Driver A. Gayler, was a Lutonian, the other also knew the town well, having for a time been on the Luton News staff.

• No bells rang out on New Year's Eve from St Mary's or Christ Church to remind us that we had entered upon another year, but at St Matthew's Church there was a watch night service which was well attended.

• On Wednesday afternoon a small fire occurred in the packing room of straw hat manufacturer Mr George Welch, of King Street. Fortunately, the fire was discovered early by an employee and been extinguished with buckets of water by the time the Fire Brigade arrived for their first call-out of the new year. Comparatively little damage was caused.