The living relatives of a World War I soldier whose remains were discovered in northern France are being sought by the Ministry of Defence (MoD). The body was found in a garden near Beaurains in June 2012. It is thought to be one of four officers from the Oxford and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry who died on 3 May 1917 and are commemorated on the Arras Memorial.

Four missing officers

It is believed to be either William Haynes or Charles Harper from Buckinghamshire, Stanley Ashman from Weston-super-Mare or John Bulmer from Yorkshire.

Lieutenant Stanley Ashman was the son of Alfred and Annie Ashman of South Field, Radstock and had five brothers.

John Legge Bulmer was a 22-year-old second lieutenant in the 4th Battalion attached to the 5th Battalion. The son of the Rev Edward and Elizabeth Bulmer of Brooklands, Filey, he had four brothers and a sister. He was head boy of Marlborough College in 1913 and later studied at Merton College, Oxford where he knew TS Elliot.

Charles Croke Harper was a second lieutenant in the 3rd Battalion attached to 5th Battalion. Born in 1880, he was the son of the Rev EJ and Frances Wetherall Harper of Broughton Rectory, Newport Pagnell, and had two brothers, Francis and Lionel and four sisters, Margaret, Mabel, Constance and Grace.

William Charles Haynes, from Aylesbury, was also a second lieutenant, who served with D Company, 5th Battalion Ox and Bucks Light Infantry. He was born in 1889, the son of licensed victualler Henry Haynes and his wife Elizabeth and had two brothers, Horace and James, and three sisters, Agnes, Florence and Connie.

He worked at the Dominion Dairy Company in the town before joining the Buckinghamshire Yeomanry and was commissioned into the Oxford and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry in January 1917.