Alma Thorpe

Alma Beryl Thorpe (born 1935) is an Australian Aboriginal elder and activist. In 1973, she co-founded the Victorian Aboriginal Health Service (VAHS), together with her mother, Edna Brown, and Bruce McGuinness.

Early life and education Thorpe was born in Melbourne during the Great Depression in Australia in 1935, and her family lived in the suburb of Fitzroy. Her mother was Edna Brown, who, after being forced off the Framlingham Aboriginal Reserve in 1932, aged 15, became a community organiser in Fitzroy. She set up an Aboriginal funeral fund from her new home, after observing many homeless Aboriginal men being buried in pauper's graves. Her father, James Brown, was a second-generation Scottish-Australian who worked for Victorian Railways and was a communist involved in the labour movement. Through her communist connections, she had been able to enter China and observe the 'barefoot doctors' program; from this experience came her concept of the Aboriginal Health Worker.

Marjorie's daughter Lidia Thorpe became the first Indigenous woman elected to the Parliament of Victoria in 2018, and the first Victorian Aboriginal Senator in 2020.