Frederick John Horner (5 November 1911 – 11 February 1997) was a British firefighter, trade unionist and politician, best known for creating the modern Fire Brigades Union. Early life Horner was born and grew up in the working-class London suburb of Walthamstow, the son of an illiterate building labourer. Encouraged by his mother, he won a rare scholarship to the Sir George Monoux Grammar School but his father's work was irregular and because of the pressure on family finances, the headmaster advised Horner to skip a year of schooling to matriculate early. He was found a job as a junior trainee buyer at Harrods, the luxury department store but already radicalised by the 1926 General Strike and by the socialists he was meeting at a local Quaker evening school, he found the job intolerable and after a year left Harrods for the Merchant Navy. In 1933, Horner returned home from sea to take the examination for a second mate's certificate but the depression of the 1930s meant many ships were laid up and it was impossible for a newly qualified officer to find work. After some months of unemployment Horner was recruited into the London Fire Brigade (LFB) and following his getting top marks at the training school he was summoned before the LFB's deputy Chief Officer, Sir Aylmer Firebrace to learn he was to be posted to headquarters at Southwark on a fast track for promotion. Fire Brigades Union Horner soon became active in the Fire Brigades Union that in 1934 had just over 2000 members, most of whom were in the LFB under the control of London County Council (LCC) that was refusing to reduce firefighters' weekly hours from 72 to 48. Horner became a vocal critic of the FBU's General Secretary, Percy Kingdom for his failure to secure concessions from the LCC and when he became known as a young firebrand, his superiors warned Horner that he was risking his chances of promotion. Eventually, in 1937 he was transferred from headquarters to Euston fire station, as a known troublemaker. When the Government established the Auxiliary Fire Service (AFS) as part of its Air Raids Precautions programme and Horner was one of the radical Young Turks in the FBU calling for a strategic response to the AFS volunteers whose conditions of employment were on worse terms than those of the regular firefighters. When Kingdom failed to respond, this