Private Lionel Ralph Worsley

Pte Lionel Ralph Worsley, 3/7730, 7th Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment, was killed in action in the Big Advance at the start of the Battle of the Somme on July 1st, 1916. He was aged 33, married and lived at 24 Ash Road, Luton.

He and his comrades had leapt over the parapet, and Lionel, a bomber, was pointing out to his gunner pal a number of enemy troops in a trench when a sniper shot him in the head. He fell back into his comrades arms and died instantly. The Beds & Herts Saturday Telegraph said he had been buried in a hero's grave at Carnoy.

Prior to enlistment he was employed as a tool store keeper at Vauxhall Motors and later worked at Skefko. He had previously been in the Army for 8½ years and seen service in India. He re-enlisted in the Bedfordshire Regiment after the outbreak of war and had been in France almost 12 months, being wounded twice.

He had married Christina Johnson in the summer of 1915 and they had a baby daughter Molly, whom he saw in his newly furnished home in Ash Road during home leave in February.

Parents Thomas and Gertrude Worsley lived at 113 Oak Road, Luton. Their family included daughters Ethel and Ada, who were engaged on special war work at the Admiralty Inspection Building in Bute Street, Luton, and son Gunner Leonard Aubrey Worsley, R.F.A., who fought in the Battle of the Somme and was wounded in July 1917 before being demobbed in March 1919.