William Brown
Thursday 17th February 1916: Today’s edition of the Luton News carries an interesting story
of how the paper helped the family of a missing soldier, which we copy in full:
“The usefulness of the Luton News and
Saturday Telegraph in locating “lost”
relatives was brought to our notice the other day in a very human little
story”.
“Lance
Corporal William Brown, 9899, of the Bedfordshire Regiment, was mentioned in a
casualty list and the War Office sent a notification the other week to Mr
Frederick Charles Brown, who was understood to be living in Guildford-street,
Luton. However, the letter was returned to the Record Office endorsed “Gone
away”. Then the Army authorities requested the Luton police to find out where
the brother had gone. Their efforts were fruitless and so they resorted to the
papers mentioned and we inserted an account of the facts of the case. The
result was that immediately several relatives of Lance Corporal Brown
communicated with Chief Constable Tearle”.
“One of these
is Mrs Groom, who is at present staying in North-street, Luton. Our
representative interviewed Mrs Groom and she explained that the family belonged
to Aspley Guise. Her brother, Mr Frederick Charles Brown, left Guildford-street
some time ago, and being a Territorial in the East Anglian Royal Engineers was
called up at the beginning of the war and is now in France”.
“Lance
Corporal Brown has been with the 1st Bedfordshire Regiment for some years, and
is 22 years of age. He went to the Front with the 1st Bedfordshire
Regiment and a year last October they
heard he was missing and then that he was wounded and a prisoner of war. Since
then conflicting rumours have reached the relatives, who suffered great
anxiety”.
“Mrs Groom
wrote to the Record Office for the notification which was returned from Luton,
and on Monday had a reply from the Record Office stating that Lance Corporal
Brown is a prisoner of war at Gardelegen, Germany, and promising to communicate
any further information”.
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