Pte Herbert George Ayres, 27915, 6th Battalion Northants Regiment, who died from double pneumonia on October 26th, 1918, was buried at Luton Church Cemetery in Crawley Green Road on October 31st. His body was borne on a gun carriage from his home at 360 Hitchin Road, Round Green, preceded by the band of the Royal Field Artillery from Biscot.

Pte Ayres, who had seen service in both Belgium and France, had been taken to Exeter Hospital in the spring of 1918 suffering from shrapnel wounds. He was subsequently transferred to convalescent homes at Westward Ho, Launceston and Ilfracombe before being put under canvas for further training in readiness for a return to the firing line. He was under canvas only a week when he contracted double pneumonia and died at 8.50pm on October 26th in the Ford House section of the 4th Southern General Hospital at Devonport.

Herbert was born in January 1886 at Breachwood Green to Sidney and Eliza Ayres. In 1911 he was 25 years old and living with his family in Breachwood Green and working as an engine driver's assistant on agricultural machinery. His father was a traction engine driver and his mother was at home with her 74 year old widowed father in-law, John Ayres.

Herbert married Dorcas Kathleen Levell on June 29th, 1912, in Kings Walden. Dorcas was already mother to Cecil Frederick Ivor Levell (born 1910), and the couple's son, Ernest George Ayres, was born on March 14th, 1913.

Herbert had joined the Northants Regiment on August 31st, 1916, at Bedford. He was then living with Dorcas and the two boys at 360 Hitchin Road, Round Green, and was working as a labourer at the Laporte chemical works.