10 Facts About Dorothy Thurtle

Dorothy Thurtle was a British women's right activist, a campaigner for contraceptive and abortion rights, and a Labour Party politician.

Dorothy Thurtle was the sixth child of the eight daughters and four sons of George Lansbury, politician and social reformer, and Labour Party leader from 1932 to 1935, and his wife Elizabeth Jane Lansbury.

Dorothy Thurtle was 16 when she became a member of the Independent Labour Party.

Dorothy Thurtle started work as a clerk and accountant, and very soon joined the National Union of Clerks.

Dorothy Thurtle joined the Women's Freedom League and the Women's Labour League, but was unhappy with the militant tactics employed by the suffragette movement, and this led to tensions in the family, especially with more militant members including her brother William Lansbury who went to prison in 1913 for breaking windows in support of the Women's Social and Political Union.

Dorothy Thurtle was the general secretary of Shoreditch Trades Council and Labour Party, and in 1925, was elected to Shoreditch Borough Council, later becoming mayor in 1936.

In 1936, Dorothy Thurtle became one of the earliest members of the Abortion Law Reform Association, and served as a vice-president until her retirement in 1962.

Dorothy Thurtle was the only member of the committee openly supportive of abortion law reform.

Dorothy Thurtle publicly dissented the committee's conclusions and issued an influential minority report which approached the issue from a fertility standpoint.

Dorothy Thurtle's report was praised by the National Council for Equal Citizenship and the ARLA, but otherwise her proposals for "voluntary abortion" received little contemporary support.