Fred Hunter, a motor engineer, was officially chairman of Exeter City between 1936 and his death in the Exeter blitz in May 1942. Although no football was played during the second-half of his time at the helm, he played an important part in keeping the club in existence during the early years of the war. He is remembered on Exeter City’s World War Two memorial in the St James’ Park Garden of Remembrance.

Born in Dundee in 1878 - growing up in Perthshire and educated near Edinburgh - the 1911 census shows Frederick Hunter living at Withycombe Raleigh, Exmouth. From at least 1921 he was a director of P.Pike and Co, motor engineers of St Thomas, Exeter and Plymouth. A keen cricketer, he was also an all-round motor enthusiast who held gold medals from driving in the London-Edinburgh and London-Land’s End runs. Having served in the Great War, he also held the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.  

Mr Hunter is believed to have become a director of Exeter City during the early 1930s and there are adverts for P.Pike - Austin dealers of Alphington Street and Bath Road - in the club programmes from the 1930/31 FA Cup run. He duly became chairman on the resignation of Michael McGahey in July 1936. 

As was invariably the case, finances were a challenge during his time in the post and in 1939 - even before the outbreak of war - Mr Hunter warned that if the position did not improve the club would have to 'put up the shutters'. By that time his three years in the chair had seen gradual progress on the field as the Grecians achieved 21st, 17th and 14th in Division Three (South) under the management of Jack English.

Subsequently war was declared and, alongside Sid Thomas retiring as secretary, the club was put into abeyance when football was suspended after the first three games of the 1939/40 season. Mr Hunter, together with Mr Thomas who became a director, assumed the administrative task of maintaining the club’s existence and keeping an eye over the wartime fate of St James’ Park.   

Meanwhile Mr Hunter became commander of the 1st (Loyal City of Exeter) Battalion of the Devon Home Guard and was to give his life on 4 May 1942, the night of the Exeter Blitz, when he was on fire-watching duty in the garden of his home in West Avenue, Exeter. Seriously injured from a bomb blast, he was taken to a first-aid centre on a makeshift stretcher before being transferred to Exminster Emergency Hospital where he died on 6 May 1942. On the occasion of the unveiling of the club’s  war memorial, the Exeter City History Group made contact with Penelope Mountain, Fred Hunter’s granddaughter, who related how - aged two-and- a-half - she had been sent to her grandfather’s home in Exeter from London to avoid the blitz. She was in an air raid shelter in the garden when Mr Hunter was hit and the house completely reduced to "just a pile of bricks".

Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Joseph Collymore Hunter is buried in St John’s-in- the-Wilderness cemetery in Exmouth where six majors of the Devon Home Guard acted as pallbearers at his funeral.