Sapper Frank Percy King, 522158, 483rd Field Company Royal Engineers, was killed in action on the Somme on April 2nd, 1918. He was aged 22 and single.

A comrade wrote to parents Frederick and Martha King at 127 Park Street, Luton: "I have some sad news to tell you. we lost an old Park Street boy, killed the last day we were in the line - Easter Tuesday. He was a jolly nice fellow, a little older than myself, and we had some very nice talks together about Park Street, for he and I were the only two Park Street boys in the Company."

Frank King was Frederick and Martha's second son, born in Luton in 1895. He joined up in November 1914 and went to France the following March - ironically on the Tuesday of Easter week.

Before enlisting he was an apprentice printer at the Town and Country Press, publishers of The Luton Reporter, in Luton. That newspaper reported that Cpl Fred Day had written to his own parents in Dallow Road saying that Sapper King was killed instantly by a shell while the company were relieving another company at night, and he had assisted in burying Frank.

Frank followed two workmates from The Reporter in joining the East Anglian Royal Engineers, and was drafted to France with another Reporter employee. Up to the time of his death he had escaped even a scratch on the battlefield, but while on home leave in August 1917 he had spent three weeks in Wardown V.A.D. Hospital.

Frank is commemorated on the Luton Roll of Honour/War Memorial and in the Luton Parish Church Book of Life (1919).