Francisco Cirtrini seems to have been an immigrant from Italy and his father was born in Liverpool in 1852. Although he left school at the age of 12, like many of the union leaders of those days he was an autodidact who studied electrical theory, economics and accountancy, as well as learning the relatively ornamental Gregg shorthand writing – a skill that stood him in good stead as a union official. As a member of the Independent Labour Party from 1906, he became widely read in the standard socialist tracts, including Marx's works and from the 1910s Citrine was quite left-wing with mildly-syndicalist views. Citrine joined the Electrical Trades Union (ETU) in 1911 and within a few years was the leading activist for that union in Merseyside, leading a national electrician's dispute there in 1913. He was elected as the union's first full-time District Secretary in 1914 (the year he married his wife and life-time companion, Doris), a post he served in throughout World War 1 and until 1920, gaining much experience negotiating with major employers all round Birkenhead docks as well as with electrical contractors in the area. He became secretary of the regional Federation of Engineering and Shipbuilding Trades (FEST) in 1919 and was elected as Assistant General Secretary of the ETU in 1920 at their headquarters in Manchester. In this role he transformed the union's finances with administrative changes which secured their income, creating his reputation for these unusual union skills. In 1924, he was appointed Assistant General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress on account of his reputation for financial and administrative abilities. The TUC, though four to five million strong with over two hundred unions affiliated, had up to then been a largely ineffective body. As the General Secretary, Fred Bramley, was ill, Citrine took on a much wider role from the start. In time, he would transform it into a coherent and effective lobbying organisation for a growing movement. He acted enthusiastically as General Secretary during the General Strike of 1926 and was confirmed in that position after it, without opposition, at the Trades Union Congress of September 1926. The defeat of the general strike proved a watershed for the trade unions, persuading most General Council leaders to abandon their previous syndicalist philosophy. With other leading figures, such as Ernest Bevin (1881–1951), Citrine helped change the face of British trade unionism. They took the