Luton's People 1914-1918
This page contains a list of soldiers/civilians from Luton and surroundings 1914-1918, and the ancestors of people who live in Luton today. It has been compiled from the 1918 Luton Absent Voters List, Rolls of Honour; and information researched and uploaded by project volunteers and members of the public.
If you find your ancestor here, and there is only basic information available, then feel free to use the comment box to add further information you may already know. The WWI Project Team, can then add this further information to the basic data we already hold.
The sources of this information can be found via the links below. Please feel free to download and use this information, but please please search for and upload your ancestor to the site if/when you find them:-
Absent Voters List
Luton Roll of honour
Before adding anybody to the site, it is always advisable to search for your ancestor first.
Gunner William Frederick Govier, 119496, 186th Siege Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery, was killed on March 21st, 1918, when a shell exploded outside the battlefield cookhouse where he and a companion were on duty. His unnamed companion was also killed.
Sapper Thomas Victor Brown, 524289, 222nd Field Company, Royal Artillery, was killed in action on April 14th, 1918.
Pte John Henry Ford, 242622, 1/5th Battalion Norfolk Regiment, died in Wardown Hospital on November 24th, 1918. He had been discharged from service the previous July with diabetes mellitus and muscle wastage that he first began to suffer while serving in Egypt and Palestine.
L-Cpl Jesse Hugh Smith, 42775, 14th Battalion Durham Light Infantry, was killed in action at Bailleul in France on April 19th, 1918.
L-Cpl William Gentle MM, 13200, Royal Army Medical Corps, was killed in action at Meteren in France on April 14th, 1918, while tending the wounded on the battlefield. He was attached to 11th Field Company Royal Engineers.
Gunner Thomas William Ivins, 235866, 312 Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, was killed in action on the Western Front on April 24th, 1918. Before joining the Army he had been licensee of the Painters Arms pub in High Town Road, Luton.
Cpl George Thomas Hunt, 14574, 7th Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment, was killed in action on April 24th, 1918. He was aged 28 and single.
L-Cpl John Walter Odell, 32944, 7th Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment, was killed in action in France on April 24th, 1918. His death seems not to have been reported in the local Press.
Lieut Normal Sworder, Royal Air Force, died of wounds sustained in aerial combat over France on April 17th, 1918. His Luton-born wife Emily Murial was living at Burnham, Maidenhead, at the time.
Pte Ralph Crawley, 225040, at Battalion London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers) was reported missing, presume killed, in action in France on March 21st, 1918, on the opening day of the German spring offensive.
Pte James Charles Bent, 325189, 1/5th Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment, was killed in action on April 21st, 1918 in Flanders. He was single, aged 20 and had served in the Army for 2½ years..
Pte John Rogers, 128958, 30th Company Machine Gun Corps, was killed by a shell which exploded as he stood by a dug-out door on the Western Front on April 22nd, 1918. He was single and aged 20.
Cpl Lionel Burt Evans, 720752, 24th Battalion London Regiment, was killed in action in Flander on April 5th, 1918. His widow Isabella was given the official news at her home at 219 High Town Road, Luton.
Cpl Henry (Harry) Meeds, 25317, 11th Battalion Suffolk Regiment, was killed in action in Flanders on April 29th, 1918.
Gunner Alfred Arthur White, 196693, 187th Brigade Royal Field Artillery, was killed instantly at about 9pm on April 15th, 1918, when a shell hit the dug-out he occupied on the Western Front in France during a heavy shelling of his battery. He was aged 23 and single.
Pte Herbert Cecil Aylott, 17850, 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards, was killed in action during a heavy enemy shell bombardment on the Western Front in France on March 30th, 1918. He had been married for only a year and had a baby daughter.
Pte William Mather, 202793, 1st Battalion Hertfordshire Regiment, is recorded as killed in action in France on March 30th, 1918. He had been Superintendent of the Beech Hill Children's Homes in Dunstable Road, where his wife Emily was Matron.
Pte Arthur William Biggs, 46000, 11th Battalion Essex Regiment, was killed in action in France on March 21st, 1918. He was single and just approaching his 20th birthday.
Pte Albert Joseph Tompkins, 203540, 2/4th Battalion Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry, was reported missing and later confirmed killed in action in France on March 21st, 1918.
Pte Arthur Lane, 57871, 15th Battalion Cheshire Regiment, was killed in action in France on March 27th during the German Spring Offensive of 1918. His mother Rose at 36 Chobham Street, Luton, was first informed he was missing on that date.
Pte Christopher Barton, 10716, 2nd Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment, was reported missing, later killed in action, in Flanders on May 8th, 1918. He was aged 25 and the son of Martha Jane and the late John Samuel, of 59 Chase Street, Luton.
Sgt Albert Parish, 17766, 2nd Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment, was killed in action in Flanders on May 8th, 1915. He was a butcher, and his military record says he resided in Luton, without giving further details. He is also commemorated on the Luton Roll of Honour, but without an address.
Sgt Frederick James Munns, 10394, 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards, was killed in action in France on May 6th, 1918. He was aged 34 and left a widow and two children.
Pte Ballantyne Blake, 269159, 1st Battalion Hertfordshire Regiment, was reported missing, on July 31st, 1917, following the battle of St Julien. It was nearly a year later that widow Ada Blake was officially told the War Office had concluded that he was killed on or soon after that date.
Pte Frederick Archer Marshall, 200315, 1/5th Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment, died of typhoid fever on May 12th, 1918, while serving in Palestine. He left a widow, Charlotte, and three children living at 6 Albert Terrace, New Town Street, Luton.
Pte Henry Robert Loosley, 43591, 7th Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment (ex-202523 Suffolk Regiment, attached 53rd Trench Mortar Battery), died suffering from enteritis and heart weakness on May 18th, 1918, while a prisoner of war in Germany. He was single and aged 20.
Pte John Walter Harrison, 48035, 4th Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment, was presumed killed in action in France on May 25th, 1918. He left a widow and five children living at 106 North Street, Luton.
Pte Herbert Leonard Lawrence Ball, 20667, 9th Battalion Norfolk Regiment, was killed in action in Flanders on April 15th, 1918. He had been in France for a year and nine months.
Pte Percy Wood, 200885, 1st Battalion Hertfordshire Regiment, was killed in action in Flanders on April 26th, 1918. He was a single man, aged 19, who had been in the Army for three years but in France for only two months.
Pte Frederick Dean, 60115, 101st Labour Company (ex-34th Battalion Royal Fusiliers), died in the 5th General Hospital in Rouen, France, on May 18th, 1918, five days after being admitted with gas shell poisoning.
Pte William (Thomas William) Dean, 60131, 26th Battalion Royal Fusiliers, was killed in action in France on March 24th, 1918, according to his family's entry in the Luton Book of Life compiled at St Mary's Church.
Pte Aldernon Wiseman, 325958, 1st Battalion Essex Regiment, was killed in action at Cambrai on November 30th, 1917.
Born in Stopsley in 1892, he was a son of Arthur and Mary Jane Wiseman, of 12 Cross Street, Luton. In the 1911 Census he was a grocer's assistant.
Rifleman Ernest William Pyne, 205137, 9th Battalion King's Royal Rifles, died of wounds shortly after being taken as a prisoner of war by the Germans during their spring offensive on March 27th, 1918.
Pte Frederick Leonard Marshall, 51742, C Company, 61st Battalion Machine Gun Corps, was presumed killed in action on March 22nd, 1918. His Red Cross record lists him as missing near St Quentin in France from that date, although a comrade had reported him to have been killed.
Pte Charles Harold Robinson, 51669, 1st Lincolnshire Regiment, was presumed killed in action in Flanders on April 16th, 1918. He was single and aged 19.
Pte Herbert Thomas Chambers, 130271, 59th Machine Gun Corps, was reported missing in Flanders on April 15th, 1918. But it was 11 months later before parents Herbert and Maggie Chambers, of 75 Wimbourne Road, Luton, learned that he had been killed in action on that date.
L-Cpl Charles James Whittington, 43269, 6th Battalion Northants Regiment, died in the Royal Fortress Hospital, Cologne, on May 24th, 1918, from a gunshot wound sustained when taken as a prisoner of war at St Quentin in France some weeks earlier.
Pte Frederick Norman Burchmore, 17574, 7th Battalion Leicestershire Regiment, died in hospital at Boulogne, France, on May 10th, 1918, after being admitted on April 30th with severe gunshot wounds in the chest and extensive internal injuries.
Pte Horace George Northwood, 41061, 1/4th King's Own (Royal Lancaster Regiment), was killed in action in France on April 26th, 1918. He was a single man aged 19 and the second of the four sons of Francis and Edith Northwood to die on the battlefield.
Pte Horace George Bird, 27369, 1st King's Shropshire Light Infantry, was killed outright by a gas shell which hit his shelter as he slept at 1am on April 20th, 1918.