Pte Wallace James Oxborrow, 238044, 12th Battalion Middlesex Regiment, was killed in action in Flanders on November 12th, 1917. A comrade wrote that he had heard from others in the regiment that Wallace was killed instantly by a shell after being sent up the line with some wire.

It was the following month before widow Hilda at 315 Hitchin Road, Luton, officially learned of her husband's death. Wallace had married Hilda Blanche Lovell at Luton Register Office on November 21st, 1916.

Born in Bredfield, near Woodbridge, Suffolk, in 1889, Wallace Oxborrow was by 1911 a boarder at the home of Harry and Amy Smart in Old Bedford Road, Luton. He was a corn and seed merchant who joined the Luton Tradesmen's Association in 1912 as a member of the corn merchants committee. He later carried on his business in Hitchin Road.

Initially rejected for military service under the Derby Scheme, he enlisted in the Essex Regiment (No. 202054) in January 1917 before being drafted out to France the following May and transferred to the Middlesex Regiment.

Wallace Oxborrow was the brother-in-law of Sgt Percy 'Punch' Lovell (Machine Gun Corps), who had been sent to the United States to train American troops, and of Pte Gerald Lovell (Beds Regiment),who had been killed in action in Flanders in October 1917.