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.

Pte Benjamin Tuffnell

 

Pte Benjamin Tuffnell, 4291, D Company, 1/5th Bedfords, was killed in action at Gallipoli on August 15th*, 1915. He was the fifth son of Mrs Ann Tuffnell, of 15 York Street, Luton, and the second of her boys to die on the battlefield.

Bert Angel was born in 1896 in Luton.

In 1911 he is living with his family at 168 Park Street. His father is 36 years old & working as a bricklayer, mother Lizzie is 37 & his 12 year old Hedley is at school. Bert is 14 years old & working as an office boy.

Pte Frank Boutwood

 

Pte Frank Boutwood, 4626, B Company, 1/5th Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment, died in the 5th Southern General Hospital at Portsmouth on October 23rd, 1915, from complications arising from dysentery contracted in Gallipoli. He was aged 34.

Albert Brooks was born in Nottingham in 1879, 1 of 13 children born to Albert & Emma.

In January 1909 he married Mary Hannah Pugh in Luton.

Henry A Brooks was born in Dunstable in October 1887. He was 1 of 13 children born to Albert & Emma.

Lieut Stanley Burnet

Lieut Stanley Burnet, 17th Training Squadron, Royal Air Force, died in a flying accident at Yatesbury, Wiltshire, on May 31st, 1918.

Charles Henry Carrington was born in Luton in 1875.

On 15th August 1894 he married Rose Ellen Mouse in Luton.

Sidney Case was the only child of John & Ellen. He was born in Deepcar, Yorkshire in June 1897.

Coy Sgt-Major Herbert Sexton

 

Company Sgt-Major Herbert William Sexton, 935, 1/2nd East Anglian Field Company, Royal Engineers, died of enteric fever on October 30th, 1915, while serving with the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force. He was aged 21 and was buried at Pieta Military Cemetery, Malta.

Ewart Alfred Mouse was born in July 1895.

Percival Edward Clark was born in Luton in January 1891, the youngest of 3 sons born to Charles & Eliza.

Bertram Alfred Clark was born in Luton in 1882. He was the eldest of 3 sons born to Charles Alfred & Eliza.

On 8th June 1908 Bertram married Beatrice Kate Crick.

 

Pte Alfred Tuffnell, 3/8144, 7th Battalion Beds Regt, died in Flanders on November 4th, 1915. Surprisingly nothing seems to have appeared about him in the local Press around the time of his death, unlike the deaths of two brothers.

L-Cpl Arthur Thomas Highton

 

L-Cpl Arthur Thomas Highton, 3874, 1/5th Bedfords, died in the University War Hospital, Southampton, on November 10th, 1915, after suffering from dysentery at Gallipoli. He was aged 18.

Pte Oswald Simmonds

 

Pte Oswald Simmonds, 7948, 1st Battalion, Loyal North Lancashire Regt, was presumed killed in action on October 31st, 1914. But it was 15 months later before his wife Rose Lilian received official notification of his death.

Beds Regt badge

 

Pte Harry Gentle, 10433, 1st Bedfordshires, was killed in action in Flanders on November 15th, 1915. He was aged 18.

Harry Clarke was born in Bromley, London in 1886.

On 8th October 1905 he married Nellie Elizabeth Ennever in St Andrew's Church, Bromley.

Pte Frank Henry Lewis (Lowin)

 

Pte Frank Herbert Lewin (Lowin*), 5349, 5th Bedfords, died in hospital in Egypt on June 28th, 1916, a few days after being admitted suffering from heat stroke. He was aged 35 and was familiarly known as "Larry".

Sgt Percy Edward Rickard

 

Prominent Luton athlete Sgt Percy Edward Rickard, 3/8141, 7th Bedfords, was killed instantly while in action on the first day of the Battle of the Somme - July 1st, 1916.

Pte Wiliam Lawson

Pte William 'Sonny' Lawson, 89750, 65th Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps, died on October 27th, 1917, from gunshot wounds sustained two days previously. The son of Luton Town FC trainer Billy Lawson, he had been serving as a stretcher bearer at the time.

Details imported from Luton Absent Voters list 1918

Thomas Collier

Thomas Collier was born in Houghton Regis in 1890 and was one of eight children born to Edwin and Elizabeth Collier.  In 1914 he married Margaret Annie Reed in Luton and they had one son, Ralph.

Jesse Bertran Hammett was born in 1895 in Luton to Walter & Emily.

In 1911 he is 16 years old & living at 169 Park street with his parents, bother Cyril 13, his brother-in-law Frederick Harding & they have a lodger Robert Chivers.

Horace Tysom was born in July 1895 in Luton.

Pte Stanley George Crawley, died in a hospital near Shrewsbury on September 19th, 1918, seven months after contracting a complicated illness while serving on the Eastern Front and being sent home.

Group photograph of eight soldiers including Ronald Rootham

Ronald Rootham, son of William and Anna Rootham of Harold Bedfordshire, served in India and the middle-east, and survived the war.

He is indicated by a dot on the group photograph uploaded below.

He married Dorothy Ward in 1923, and tragically died in 1934 aged only 35.

Sidney Price's story is linked to Luton via finding his name in an Autograph Book that existed in Collingdon Street during WW1.

James Clarke of Tavistock St, Dunstable served 12 years with the Royal Navy before transferring to the Royal Navy Reserve in 1908. When WW1 commenced the thirty six year old  was called up to  to serve aboard HMS Hogue which was part of a patrol of armoured cruisers in the North Sea.

Ernest Bates, aged 29, of 59 Cromwell Road, Luton, died at Wardown Park V.A.D. Hospital at 2.25pm on December 29th, 1918, from double pneumonia and heart failure while on 14 days leave from France.

George Arthur Meeks died at Wardown Park V.A.D. Hospital in November 1918, shortly after the armistice had been declared.

He was the son of Jesse and Dinah Meeks, a Cambridgeshire Gamekeeper and his wife.

WT Panter

William Thomas Panter, Pte/Cpl, (or bill as he was known), joined the army on 2nd Feb 1914 at Kempston Barracks, which covered a considerable area in those days, (just the main entrance building remains today). 

Gravestone of Walter William Pinney

In the 1911 census, Walter was living at 30 Oak Road, Luton. He was living with his 50 year old father Walter, who was as brickmaker's labourer, sister Ellen Victoria, 23, working as a launderess and his 17 year old sister Edith, who is a strawhat machinist.

Arthur was born in 1883 in Luton to Edwin and Mary Elizabeth Hitchcock.

Sydney was born in 1885 to John Thomas and Eliza. He was living at 6 Crawley Green Road in 1911 with his mother, a straw hat machinist, four sisters, Olive, a milliner aged 19, Doris 12, Marjorie 10, Elsie 7 and his 4 year old brother Leslie. Sydney was working in the hat factory warehouse.

Second Lieutenant Cyril Edward Franklin, son of Edward and Elizabeth Franklin, was born 1887, died in 1917, leaving behind a wife and young child.

Sidney Albert Dillingham was my Grandfather.  He was born in 1885 in Luton to Albert and Mary Dillingham, who went on to have eight other children.  In 1910 Sidney married Annie Fossey Butler and they had three daughters, Violet, Beatrice and Dorothy.  In 1916 Sidney joined the Royal Army Medical

Hitchin Road Boys'School war memorial

Lance Corporal George Wells, 725730, 24th Battalion London Regiment, is named on the Hitchin Road Boys School War Memorial as an Assistant Master who "fell in the First World War".

Leonard Euinton

Acting Sergeant 1st Bedfordshire Regiment.

Edward and his staff at Stockwood House, he is in the centre 1914

Major General The Hon. Edward James Montagu-Stuart-Wortley, CB, CMG, DSO, MVO (31 July 1857 – 19 March 1934) was a general of the King's Royal Rifle Corps that served the British Army from 1877 to 1919.

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