Thora Silverthorne

Thora Silverthorne (25 November 1910 – 17 January 1999), also known as "Red Silverthorne", was a British Communist, nurse and healthcare activist. She worked as a nanny for MP Somerville Hastings in her youth. She 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 (NHS), and co-founding Britain's first union for rank and file nurses.

Silverthorne was a life-long member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB).

Early life

Thora Silverthorne was born into a working-class mining family in Abertillery, Wales on 25 November 1910, to Sarah (née Boyt) and George Silverthorne, the fifth of eight children. Her 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. She grew up in Abertillery and went to Nantyglo Primary School before winning a scholarship to Abertillery Grammar School. She attended Sunday school at the Blaenau Gwent Baptist Chapel.

When Silverthorne's mother died in August 1927, she and her family relocated to Reading, Berkshire.

She 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. Although she was also a member of the UK Labour party, she remained a lifelong member of the CPGB. During her teenage years in Reading, Silverthorne supported herself by selling the ''Daily Worker'' to railway staff, and she worked as a Nanny for Somerville Hastings, Reading's Labour Party MP and founder of the Socialist Medical Association (SMA). Hastings was known to have supported Silverthorne's ambition to become a nurse. In March 1931, Silverthorne started training as a nurse at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford, where her older sister Olive was already working as a nurse. She volunteered as a nurse for Lancashire hunger marchers passing through Oxford during the National Hunger March, and was prone to "helping herself to bandages and dressings" from the wards of the Radcliffe Infirmary. During her time in Oxford, she was given the nickname "Red Silverthorne" for her communist activities, and would also become friends with the Marxist historian Christopher Hill who she met through the Oxford communist society known as the October Club.

Participation in the Spanish Civil War

In October 1934, 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 (SMAC), Dr Charles Wortham Brook. That same year she joined SMAC, a decision which she described as 'the prime and best and most important decision I've made in my life'. In October 1936, she travelled to Spain alongside photographer Alec Wainman as part of the British Medical Unit, the first-ever foreign medical unit from any country to travel to Spain and serve the Spanish republican government. After arriving in Spain, she was involved in the creation of the first British hospital in Spain during the Spanish Civil War, established near Grañén. She was later elected the chief nurse and matron of this same hospital. British International Brigadier Michael Livesey died of his injuries while in Silverthorne's arms, a memory which haunted her for the rest of her life. During her time in Spain, she met Kenneth Sinclair-Loutit, whom she would marry during the war in 1937. Silverthorne worked closely alongside Doctor Archie Cochrane, who praised her for her professional expertise in medicine.

After SIlverthorne's death in 1999, declassified British archives showed that she was being closely monitored by British government spies, who had intercepted her mail and monitored her telephone.

Later and professional life

She returned to Britain in September 1937, where she lived in a flat in 12 Great Ormond Street in London. According to historian Liz Woolley, Silverthorne "went on to have a distinguished career which changed the nursing profession to a remarkable degree", and also became the sub-editor for ''Nursing Illustrated.'' Deeply influenced by her experiences in Spain, she made it her "life work" to improve the pay, conditions and professional standing of British nurses.

With the help of communist nurses, she and activist Nancy Blackburn co-founded the National Nurses Association, the first trade union that represented ordinary rank and file nurses. This nurses union gained significant attention from the British press, which it used to highlight the poor pay and working conditions of British nurses. In response to her socialist beliefs and the radical politics of the National Nurses Association, the Royal College of Nursing attacked Silverthorne for allegedly "not being a registered nurse" and by also claiming that she was "paid by Moscow". Silverthorne became the Organising Secretary of the Socialist Medical Association (SMA) in July 1942, making her their first employee. As the Secretary of the SMA, she led a delegation that met Clement Attlee to discuss the establishment of the National Health Service. She was a full-time union official of the Civil Service Clerical Association until she retired in 1970.

Silverthorne was chosen to greet Pablo Picasso during a visit to the UK.

Personal life

After returning from Spain with her new husband Kenneth Sinclair-Loutit (whom she married in 1937), they lived together at 12 Great Ormond Street and had one daughter, Christina Ruth (1940–2009). Silverthorne divorced Sinclair-Loutit and in 1946 married the architect and fellow communist party member Cameron Nares Craig (1917–2012) in 1946. They had one son and two daughters, Tina, Lucy and Jonathan. They lived for 25 years at Lletyreos near Llanfyllin, Powys for 25 years before returning to London in 1995.

She was also a friend of Arthur Horner, Clive Jenkins, and Frank Cousins.

Thora Silverthorne died in London in January 1999, having suffered from Alzheimer's disease and was commemorated with a funeral in Marylebone cemetery. During the funeral, the Welsh hymn Land of My Fathers, as performed in English by Paul Robeson, was played during the service. In 2022 she was honoured with a Purple Plaque in Abertillery.

See also

* Charlie Hutchison
* Ralph Winston Fox
* Bill Alexander
* GCT Giles
* British Battalion
* Communist Party of Great Britain

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Silverthorne, Thora
British nurses
1910 births
1999 deaths
Communist Party of Great Britain members
British trade unionists
British women of the Spanish Civil War
British people of the Spanish Civil War
International Brigades personnel