Pte Harry Chalkley, 50129, 8th Battalion Suffolk Regiment, was presumed killed in action on October 13th, 1917, according to a letter from the Front. He had enlisted in the Suffolks in July 1916 and went to France the following November.

A chaplain writing to widow Ellen Laura Chalkley at 40 Avondale Road, Luton, said her husband had been missing since October 13th and he was not optimistic about his fate.

"The battle on the 13th was fought in mud, and the only shelter was a succession of shell-holes. The sniping was so persistent that movement was impossible during the daytime," he wrote.

"Your husband was in charge of a Lewis gun, and was slightly in advance of his company. His gun was blown up, but no one knows what happened to him. The chances that he is alive are very few. He is unlikely to be a prisoner, and if he was taken through a casualty clearing station the fact would have been reported by now."

Harry Chalkley, aged 35, was employed for 13 years as a warehouseman by hat manufacturers Messrs Hucklesby & Co, after which he worked for hat manufacturer Mr Amos Hudson, of Upper George Street, for four years.

He was a deacon of the Union Chapel, Castle Street, the church where he had married Ellen Laura Asker on July 17th, 1907. The couple had two children - Harry Samuel, born 1908, and Doris Nellie, born 1910.