Thora Silverthorne

Thora Silverthorne (25 November 1910 – 17 January 1999), also known as "Red Silverthorne", was a nurse, a healthcare activist, and a lifelong member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). She is most known for her service to the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War, for co-founding Britain's first union for rank-and-file nurses, and for helping to set up the National Health Service (NHS).

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. She was 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. Hastings was known to have supported Silverthorne's ambition to become a nurse. In March 1931, she started nurse training at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford, where her older sister Olive was already working as a nurse. During the National Hunger March, Silverthorne volunteered as a nurse for Lancashire hunger marchers passing through Oxford. She was prone to "helping herself to bandages and dressings" from the wards of the Radcliffe Infirmary. While at Oxford she was given the nickname "Red Silverthorne" for her communist activities. She became friends there with Marxist historian Christopher Hill, whom 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. 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 hospital. British International Brigadier Michael Livesey died of his injuries while in Silverthorne's arms, a memory which haunted her the rest of her life. This nurses union gained significant attention from the British press, which it used to highlight the poor pay and working conditions for 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 also claimed she was being "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 give proposals for setting up a National Health Service. 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.