Fred Horne was born in Thornton on 17 July 1890 and baptised at Christ Church on and 5 October following. He was the youngest of four children of Thomas Horne and his wife Annie Butler who married on 28 February 1882 at St Chad, Poulton-le-Fylde. Fred's father was a wheelwright from St. Michael on Wyre who came to our area soon after the 1881 Census.
Thomas and Annie's first child was baptised Agnes Nanny (after both her grandmothers) at Christ Church, Thornton on 13 August 1882. A second daughter Margaret was born on 10 February 1886 and baptised on 28 March. Sadly she lived for just 16 months and was buried in Thornton churchyard on 9 July 1897. A second Margaret - Margaret Mary - was born on 11 March the following year and baptised at Christ Church on 29 April 1888.
When the Census was taken on 5 April 1891, the Horne family were recorded at Raikes Road, Thornton. Living with them was Annie's unmarried mother Ellen Butler who would continue to live with her daughter until her death in 1929.
In the following Census on 31 March 1901, Thomas and Annie and their three children were living at Briar House on Briar Road. On 9 May 1903 Agnes married Henry Herbert Sumner at Christ Church, Thornton and in 1908 Margaret married his younger brother Peter. The brothers were plasterers like their late father William Oliver Sumner who had moved his family from Blackburn to Lawson's Cottage, Lawsons Lane, Thornton shortly before the turn of the century.
In the Census recorded on 2 April 1911, the three families were living next to each other in Briar Road. Fred, aged 20, was still at home with his parents and grandmother and, like his father, he was working as a gardener.
Not much is known about Fred's military service. Evidently he joined the King's Own Royal Lancaster Regiment as Private number 22102, probably as a Territorial but was subsequently transferred to the Lincolnshire Regiment. Fred was killed in action on 31 July 1917 at the Third Battle of Ypres. He was aged 27 and unmarried. His body was never recovered. Pte. Fred Horne, 32895, 2nd Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment is remembered on Bay 21, Stone 2 of the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium.
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