Thora Silverthorne, known as "Red Silverthorne", was a British Communist, nurse and healthcare activist.
19 Facts About Thora Silverthorne
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Thora Silverthorne worked as a nanny for MP Somerville Hastings in her youth.
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Thora Silverthorne is most known for her service to the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War, and for her roles in helping to found both Britain's National Health Service, and co-founding Britain's first union for rank and file nurses.
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Thora Silverthorne was born into a working-class mining family in Abertillery, Wales on 25 November 1910, to Sarah and George Silverthorne, the fifth of eight children.
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Thora Silverthorne's father was an early recruit to the CPGB, an active member of the South Wales Mines Federation, and a coal hewer at the Six Bells Colliery.
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Thora Silverthorne attended Sunday school at the Blaenau Gwent Baptist Chapel.
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When Thora Silverthorne's mother died in August 1927, she and her family relocated to Reading, Berkshire.
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Thora Silverthorne joined the Young Communist League at the age of 16 during the 1926 United Kingdom general strike, and soon afterwards was seen chairing meetings with the communist trade union leader Arthur Horner, and later joined the CPGB.
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In March 1931, Thora Silverthorne started training as a nurse at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford, where her older sister Olive was already working as a nurse.
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In October 1934, Thora Silverthorne left Oxford and completed her medical training in London, and by 1936 she had taken her first post at the Hammersmith Hospital where she met founding member of the Spanish Medical Aid Committee, Dr Charles Wortham Brook.
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Thora Silverthorne was later elected the chief nurse and matron of this same hospital.
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Thora Silverthorne worked closely alongside Doctor Archie Cochrane, who praised her for her professional expertise in medicine.
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Thora Silverthorne returned to Britain in September 1937, where she lived in a flat in 12 Great Ormond Street in London.
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Thora Silverthorne became the Organising Secretary of the Socialist Medical Association in July 1942, making her their first employee.
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Thora Silverthorne was a full-time union official of the Civil Service Clerical Association until she retired in 1970.
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Thora Silverthorne was chosen to greet Pablo Picasso during a visit to the UK.
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Thora Silverthorne divorced Sinclair-Loutit and in 1946 married the architect and fellow communist party member Cameron Nares Craig in 1946.
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Thora Silverthorne was a friend of Arthur Horner, Clive Jenkins, and Frank Cousins.
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Thora Silverthorne died in London in January 1999, having suffered from Alzheimer's disease and was commemorated with a funeral in Marylebone cemetery.