Pte Stanley Squires Cawdell, 5329, 15th County of London Regiment (Civil Service Rifles), was killed in action near Ypres on January 11th, 1917. He was 30 years old and the son of Sarah Ann (nee Squires) and the late William George Cawdell (died 1906), of 244 High Town Road, Luton.

Stanley Cawdell was an old boy of St Matthew's School and had been employed as a clerk by the Midland Railway Co. He was also secretary of the local Midland Railway Football Club. He had tried five times to enlist before joining the Civil Service Rifles in December 1915.

Pte Ernest Barker, 3/7094, 2nd Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment, was killed in action on October 28th, 1914, during the First Battle of Ypres.

Born in December 1892 in Earls Barton, Northants, he was the son of Sarah and the late James Barker, who had married on April 1st, 1888. His widowed mother and three brothers and two sisters came to Luton after the death of James in 1902 and managed a grocery shop in New Town Street. Around the time of Ernest's death they had moved to live at 26 Back Street, Luton.

Pte Frederick Thomas Sharp, 3/8705, 8th Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment, was killed in action near Ypres on April 19th, 1916. He was aged 29 and the father of six children.

Pte Sharp, of 21 Essex Street, Luton, joined the colours in October 1914 and was drafted to the Western Front in October 1915. He fought at Ypres, Messines and Vimy Ridge and was gassed in December 1915. On recovery he returned to the trenches.

He formerly worked as an iron moulder at the Diamond Foundry in Dallow Road. He was also well-known in athletics circles and was a harrier.

Pte John Alfred Marlow, 19944, 8th Battalion Beds Regiment, was killed in action near Ypres on April 19th, 1916. Initially he was reported missing and his mother asked for his picture to be published in the Luton News in the hope that comrades who read the newspaper would be able to provide positive news.

Pte Marlow was only 18 years old and lived with parents John and Louisa Marlow at 30 Spring Place, Luton. He had begun working as a nine-year-old as an errand boy for hat manufacturer H. Rosson and Co, of 90-92 Collingdon Street. He later worked in the firm's factory.

Pte Walter Ernest Gore, 22505, 8th Battalion Beds Regiment, was killed in action near Ypres on April 19th, 1916, after just nine weeks of active service on the Western Front. He was aged 27.

The second son of Albert and Elizabeth Gore, of 32 St Ann's Road, Luton, he had worked at the Hubbard works in Princess Street before joining up in September 1915.

He left a widow, Florence May, and young daughter, Grace Florence. At the time of the 1911 Census the family were living at 30 St Ann's Road.

Pte Charles Ellingham, 22462, 8th Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment, was killed in action near Ypres on April 19th, 1916.

Born in Luton, he was the youngest but one of six sons of James and Susan Ellingham, of 26 Spring Place, Luton. For some years before the war he was employed by J. Custance and Sons, sugar boilers, at 15 Chapel Street.

Pte Ellingham had been at the Front for just nine weeks. On the day of his death there had been a very severe bombardment by the enemy that was one of the worst so far experienced and lasted eight hours.

Pte Albert George Cox, 20172, 8th Bedfordshire Regiment, was killed in action near Ypres on April 19th, 1916. He enlisted on April 7th, 1915, and was trained at the Duke of Bedford's training camp at Ampthill. He was aged 33.

Born in Sundon, he was the son of Charles and Jane Cox. Like his father, George (as he appears to have been generally known) had been an agricultural labourer on Henry Gates' farm at Sundon. They lived in a farm cottage.

Pte Cox is commemorated on the Sundon Village War Memorial.

Pte Albert George Taylor, 8459, 1st Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment, was killed in action at Ypres on November 7th, 1914. His widowed mother Sophia and sister Mabel were then living at 42 Collingdon Street, Luton.

Pte Thomas Everitt, 3/8430, 8th Battalion Beds Regiment, was killed in action near Ypres on March 1st, 1916. His younger brother, Frederick, 15432, Essex Regiment, was killed at Loos on September 26th, 1915.

The brothers' parents, Thomas and Rhoda Everitt, of 12 Harcourt Street, Luton, heard of the second tragedy to hit their family shortly after the death of 35-year-old Thomas.

Thomas Everitt had lived in Luton until 15 years previously. He married Rosa Smith in 1897 and went to work in the paper mills at Hemel Hempstead, He left a widow and six children.

Captain Edward Emil Simeons, 8th Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment, died on February 17th, 1916, from shell wounds sustained in action near Ypres the previous day. He was aged 22.

Although the second son of Carl and Edith Simeons, of Blyth Road, Bromley, Kent, he had since 1910 lived with his uncle, Thomas Arthur Cawley, principal of the British Gelatine Works in New Bedford Road, Luton, and lived at Lea Dale, New Bedford Road. Edward was an apprentice at the Gelatine Works and there seems to have been a a further family link in that his father was a gelatine merchant.

Pte Frederick Lawrence, 3/6115, 1st Battalion, Beds Regt, was killed in action near Ypres on March 29th, 1915.

Born in Luton in 1889, he married Nellie Eliza Evans in 1906 and lived at 32 Duke Street, Luton. At the time of the 1911 Census he is described as a dye yard labourer with a son, Leslie aged three, and daughter Violet Maisie, aged six months. The family then lived at 22 Duke Street.

Nellie remarried after Frederick's death and continued to live at 32 Duke Street.

Lieutenant Edmund Elgood Punchard, son of a former Vicar of Christ Church, Luton, was killed in action with the 2nd Battalion Beds Regt (21st Brigade, 7th Division) at Ypres on October 31st, 1914. He had just celebrated his 24th birthday.

He was shot leading his platoon in an attack on a ridge near Zandvoorde and was buried at Kruiseck, near Gheluvelt [Geluveld]. He was mentioned in Sir John French's despatch on January 14th, 1915.

Pte Henry George Pateman, 13260, 2nd Battalion Beds Regt, was killed in action near Ypres on February 24th, 1915. He was aged 19.

The son of William and Elizabeth Pateman, of 42 Ivy Road, Luton, he was a native of Dunstable but lived nearly all his life at Houghton Regis, being educated at the British School. Before enlistment he had been a butcher's assistant in the district.

Pte Frederick William Miller, 7469, 1st Battalion, Beds Regt, was killed in action near Ypres on November 7th, 1914. He was aged 35.

Born at Writtle, near Chelmsford, on November 5th, 1879, he moved from Essex to Luton shortly before the First World War and worked for about three years at the Skefko Ball Bearing Co Ltd, Leagrave Road. In 1912 he married widow Salome Annie Standbridge, who had a family of five or six children, and they lived at 70 Highbury Road, Luton.

Pte Walter O'Brien, 10119, A Company, 2nd Battalion, Beds Regt, was killed in action at Ypres on October 26th, 1914. He was aged 20.

The eldest of (Edwin) James and Elizabeth O'Brien's six children, he belonged to a much-travelled family that lived at 65 Warwick Road, Luton, in 1914. His father was born in Newton Abbot, Devon, his mother came from Pembrokeshire and he was born at Stantonbury, Bucks, in 1894. His two brothers and three sisters were born variously in Worcester, Birmingham, Rugby, Leicester and Yiewsley, Middlesex.