Some time after 9 pm on Sunday, October 1st, 1916, ten German airships crossed the East Coast with the aim of bombing London. They were initially driven off but attempted to return over Hertfordshire.

Stories from the Beds & Herts Saturday Telegraph: September 30th, 1916.

Second Officer Andrew, of the Luton Fire Brigade, has received an appreciative letter from Mr H. N. Davis, managing director of the Davis Gas Stove Co Ltd, in connection with the big fire at the works on September 20th.

Still one of the all-time biggest cinema box office crowd-pullers in Britain, the ground-breaking film The Battle of the Somme was to be shown to Luton audiences for the first time during a week-long run beginning on Monday, October 2nd, 1916, at the Palace Cinema in Mill Street. More than 20 million people nationwide would see the film at their local picture palaces.

Farley Pond in 1976

Boys raiding horse chestnut trees in Stockwood Park for conkers on the evening of Friday, September 29th, 1916, made a gruesome discovery in Farley Green Pond - often spoken of, said the Beds & Herts Saturday Telegraph the following day, as the 'Suicide's Pond'.

The question of whether in a town of the size of Luton trams were a necessity or merely a convenience was raised by the Military Representative in a case at the Luton Tribunal on September 27th, 1916, in which application was made for the exemption of two motormen [drivers] and an inspector.

Stories from The Luton News: Thursday, September 28th, 1916.

Sunday's was a glorious morning for the Volunteer manoeuvres, and there was one of the biggest musters of the local Corps recently seen at Luton Hoo. Sixty-four recruits took the oath of allegiance.

This was a crater left when an airship dropped a bomb in the grounds of Luton Hoo on September 24th, 1916. Bombs were also dropped at Dunstable, Kensworth and Leighton Buzzard around the same time, but nobody was hurt and the sum total of damage was a few smashed window panes.

The Hoo event wasn't reported at the time, but 20 years later to the day the Luton News recalled it and other Zeppelin incidents locally.

Stories from the Beds & Herts Saturday Telegraph: September 23rd, 1916.

At the meeting of the Luton Board of Guardians on Monday application was made for relief for the wife of a soldier. She sent documentary evidence that he allowance had been stopped and the reason given was that her husband had "deserted to the enemy".

The usually quiet neighbourhood of Ashton Road was on Saturday afternoon [September 23rd, 1916] the scene of the first fatal accident in which the Luton Tramways have been concerned since the inauguration of the service some eight years ago.

It involved the death from injuries within a few minutes of a little girl named Winifred May Dickens, aged two and a half years, whose father (Pte F. W. Dickens) is serving with the 1/5th Bedfordshire Regiment in Egypt.

• Round Green seen from the air in 1921

A most extraordinary charge was preferred at Luton Petty Sessions on Saturday [September 23rd, 1916] against the owner of a lioness which was recently on view at Round Green Fair.

Second-Lieut John Wilfrid Staddon, born March 20th, 1889, and eldest son of Luton Mayor and Mayoress Alderman and Mrs James Staddon, was reported missing, believed killed in action on the Somme on September 15th, 1916. But on September 22nd a field-postcard arrived from him to say he was wounded and in a base hospital in France and "going on well".

Stories from The Luton News: Thursday, September 21st, 1916.

The staggering news has reached Luton that Second-Lieut Alexander Pigott Wernher, youngest son of the late Sir Julius Wernher and of Lady Wernher, of Luton Hoo and Bath House, Piccadilly, London, has fallen on the battlefield in France.

Stories from the Beds & Herts Saturday Telegraph: September 16th, 1916.

Two Lutonians were included in a list of NCOs and men awarded the Military Medal for bravery published by the War Office on Friday, September 15th, 1916.

Sgt Francis Guy Harmer, 2435, and Sgt Danzey F. Summerfield, 2539, were both serving with the 24th County of London Regiment (The Queen's).

Stories from The Luton News: Thursday, September 14th, 1916.

The Mayor (Alderman J. H. Staddon) made a pleasing announcement at the sitting of Luton Tribunal yesterday afternoon in connection with the medical examinations now taking place at Bedford.