Alfred A. Thorne

Alfred Athiel Thorne, LLD, MA (August 14, 1871–April 23, 1956) (known as "A.A. Thorne"), was a Popular Statesman, Incisive Author, Advocate for Educational Access, and Key Contributor to the History of Human Rights. A.A. Thorne famously championed human rights during the nineteenth century by establishing and leading one of the first human rights and labor rights institutions in the Western Hemisphere. He also broke new ground for Educational Access by establishing and operating one of the world's first co-educational private secondary schools, providing equal access to qualified students regardless of their gender, race, ethnicity, religion or financial status, in British Guiana in 1894. The school he founded provided educational access for hundreds of students who would otherwise have been excluded from the existing preparatory schools due to their high tuitions and restrictive class-based and gender-based admissions policies. Called a "Hero of the People", Thorne worked to unify the collective voices of East Indians, Africans, Chinese, Portuguese, Aboriginal Amerindians, and working class British colonists across the British colony. He was popularly elected to numerous public offices for more than fifty years, including as Mayor of British Guiana's capital city, Georgetown. A prolific writer and columnist, Thorne authored numerous published articles and editorial columns for the influential newspapers "Echo" and "Outlook" in British Guiana, as well as notable articles published by the "Boston Transcript" in Massachusetts. Using the merit of his ideas and the power of his words, AA Thorne courageously stood up for the principles of self-determination, social justice and equal rights which had been casualties of colonialism and plantocracy -- and he repeatedly won broad-based support, driven by compelling arguments and inclusive politics. Born in Barbados, Dr. Thorne was a British Classical Scholar in Latin and Greek, and earned two degrees from Durham University in Durham, England -- the world's third-oldest English-speaking university -- where he graduated with honors and became the first person in history of African descent to earn both Bachelor's and Advanced degrees conferred by a British University.

Photograph of A. A. Thorne

A.A. Thorne first visited the United States in 1904, at the special invitation of the New York City Mayor. During this U.S. visit, Thorne delivered a keynote address to the President and Alumni of Wilberforce University, where the Senate conferred upon Thorne the degree of Doctor of Laws (LLD), a distinctive honor which had only been conferred previously on two other men: US President William McKinley, and Frederick Douglass.

Advocate for Educational Access

Dr. Thorne served many decades as an educator, writer and elected official in British Guiana, creating positive and lasting impact for generations by advocating for the principles of freedom, democracy and self-determination.[1] He founded the country's first private coeducational secondary school offering equal access regardless of gender, ethnicity, color, or socio-economic status. After graduating with advanced degrees from University of Durham in England, Thorne moved to British Guiana, where in 1894 he founded the country's first coeducational private secondary school that provided equal access to qualified students regardless of gender, color, ethnicity or socio-economic status, called The Middle School because it was the first opportunity for high-quality education accessible to talented students from middle class families. The school provided a high quality level of education that rivaled the standards previously available only to students from families who enjoyed privileged plantocracy-based high status, who could attend top schools including Queen's College (the prestigious boys school) and Bishop's High School (the prestigious girls school), and were wealthy enough to afford their high tuitions.[1][2]

Dr. Thorne also served as the school's Headmaster. The school broke many barriers, enrolling both boys and girls and providing children from underprivileged and moderate-income families access to reduced tuition and tuition-free education comparable in quality to the educational level previously available only at the leading elite private educational institutions such as Queens College -- thereby creating educational access for the first time across gender lines, ethnic lines, and socio-economic classes in an era long before gender rights and civil rights were protected by anti-discrimination laws and equal opportunity laws of the land.[3] The private school became known for the high-quality education it provided. It was on par with Queen's College and Bishop's High School.[1][2]

Influential Statesman and Elected Official

A.A. Thorne served a prominent role in public service and held elected offices at both the municipal and national level for more than 50 years in British Guiana, including as an elected member of the Georgetown City Council for 47 years starting in 1902. He served as Deputy Mayor in 1921, 1922 and 1925. In national elections, Thorne was elected to the Combined Court in 1906 and was also elected as the Financial Representative for the North West District and New Amsterdam (1906-1911 and 1916-1921).[1]

Thorne entered national politics in 1906 with his successful election to the national Court of Policy. He won re-election again in 1916. Dr. Thorne served numerous elected offices over a 50-year period of continuous elected service, including as Legislator and Town Councillor. He was widely recognized for "throwing open certain avenues of employment to Guianese".[3]

  • Georgetown City Council, 1902-1949
  • British Guiana National Court of Policy, 1906-1911, 1916-1921
  • Georgetown Deputy Mayor, 1921, 1922, 1925
  • The Education Commission, 1924-1925
  • The Cost of Living Survey Committee, 1942
  • The Franchise Commission, 1942-1944
  • The Education Development Committee, 1943-1945
  • British Guiana National Trade Council - Executive Officer, 1945
  • The Georgetown Fire Advisory Committee, 1945
  • The Georgetown Pure Water Supply Board, 1945-1946
  • British Guiana Labour Union
  • British Guiana Workers League, 1931-1952

Advocate for Human Rights and Workplace Safety

Thorne led the British Guiana Labour Union, the country's first worker's union, and also subsequently founded and led the country's second trade union, the British Guiana Workers' League, in 1931.[17] He served as the League's leader for 22 years.[1] The League sought to protect basic human rights and improve the working conditions of people from all ethnic backgrounds including workers of African, East Indian, Chinese, Portuguese, and Amerindian descent — many of whom had originally been brought to the British colony under a system of forced labor (slavery) or indentured servitude, or who were Amerindian natives of the land now occupied and taken over under the forces of European imperialism. He was also popular among the working class British community members for his advocacy on behalf of those who labored in factories long before the workplace safety standards and labor laws of today were enacted.

A.A. Thorne also served as President of the British Guiana Trades Union Council.[4] The union represented the human rights interests of a wide variety of workers across vastly different trades, including manual laborers on sugar plantations, municipal workers in Georgetown, and ward-maids at the Georgetown Hospital.[5] Thorne's work for workplace safety guidelines and labor rights laid the foundation for the formation of the Man Power Citizens' Association (MPCA), which he also co-led.

A.A. Thorne was elected to the City Council of the British colony's capital city Georgetown in 1902.[2][6] As a member of City Council, he was active in reform efforts of the colony. Two years after joining the council, in 1904, he published an article in a Boston, MA newspaper about the dominance of the sugar plantation owners and the sugar industry over all other economic sectors of the country.[2] In their ill-fated attempt to retaliate while Thorne was traveling out of the country, the embarrassed planters arranged for an article of their own to be published in Argosy, the local newspaper of Georgetown. The planters' article in Argosy served only to strengthen Thorne's vast popularity in his home country, as the masses admired Thorne's courage to speak the truth and stand up against corruption and intimidation by former slave holders. Each of the Argosy article's false claims was disproven in a court of law, as A.A. Thorne boldly won a landmark trial case against the planter-controlled Argosy which published the false article, and Thorne was awarded 500 British pounds by the court for his successful claim of libel. The now famous court case is documented as one of the most pivotal trials over the past 300 years that helped to shape modern rule of law in the Americas, and the entire landmark trial's transcript is published in Making of Modern Law: Trials, 1600-1926.[7][8]

Lifetime of Public Service with Lasting Social Impact

Dr. Thorne recognized that the 1919 Colonisation Scheme created friction and negative racial feelings in the colony of British Guiana. He was instrumental in advocating for fair wages for all citizens, and led the way for passage of increased wages for East Indians and Chinese workers (who had been introduced to the colony as cheap labor) and African workers (who had been enslaved and brought to the country under a system of forced labor). [9] Dr. Thorne helped to make the country's agricultural industry more internationally competitive by demonstrating how colonial control over rice production, a staple sustenance crop in the colony at the time, had led to unwise and uncompetitive pricing practices, resulting in rice being priced higher in British Guiana than neighboring countries and islands. One of his sons who was an Ivy League-educated economics professor, Alfred P. Thorne, built on this information in reference to the problematic issues emerging from purposefully maintaining a supply of low-cost labor in developing countries, in his book Poor By Design.

Although a formal biography of his life has not yet been written, A.A. Thorne has been widely referenced as a pivotal historical figure in connection with the development and spread of the principles of self-determination, human rights, social justice, democracy, educational access, gender equality, rule of law, and other transformational social changes across the world during the 19th century.[10][11][12] His perspectives were included in Nancy Cunard's Negro: An Anthology in a chapter titled 'The Negro and his Descendants in British Guiana' [13] In it, he describes the social and economic conditions of black and brown people living in the plantation-based colonies of Guiana under Dutch, French and British rule.

Early Life, Education, and Family

Alfred Athiel Thorne was born in Barbados. The island of Barbados at the time was a British colony. Thorne was the son of Louisa Jane Alleyne and Samuel Athiel Thorne, a highly educated schoolmaster in Barbados. A.A. Thorne completed his secondary education at the Lodge School and Codrington College in St John, Barbados, and subsequently earned both his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in England at the University of Durham in England. Thorne earned the highest score across the British colony on the British national exams, and ranked in his graduating class at Codrington College, a leading preparatory college founded in 1710 which was traditionally attended by sons of the local gentry and plantocracy prior to attending an English university. Codrington College's graduating students took the national British exams, which determined their qualification for admission to a university in England. Each year, the highest-scoring graduate was awarded a national scholarship to attend Durham University in England. Thorne achieved the highest score on the national exams. However, no person of color had ever before won this prestigious national scholarship. In a cowardly and open act of racism, the Scholarship Committee notoriously made the ill-fated decision not to honor its pwn policy to provide the scholarship award to Thorne, the undisputed highest-scoring student that year on the national exams. Instead, they offered the scholarship to a white student who earned the second-place score on the national exams. Revealing what would prove to be a lifetime of standing up for himself, for social justice, integrity, and standing up against the powerful forces of plantocracy and colonial forces, A.A. Thorne properly sued the national college committee in the British colonial courts -- and, against all odds, he WON his case. Persuaded by Thorne's convincing argument, the British court required the Scholarship Committee to follow its own existing policies. Thorne persuaded the court that British rules for the university scholarship must be followed as written. As a result, Thorne was granted the scholarship and proceeded to represent his colony by attending Durham University, where he proceeded to earn not one, but two degrees, and graduated with Honors. He was the first person of African heritage in the British Empire to earn two degrees from a university in England.

After earning advanced degrees with Honors from Durham University, A.A. Thorne returned to the Caribbean and resided in British Guiana. He married schoolteacher and accomplished artist Eleanor Amanda McLean, then became a young widower due to her untimely death. Thereafter, Thorne met his wife Violet Janet Ashurst, a Classical Greek and Latin Scholar and artist who was born and raised in British Guiana, the daughter of Charles Ashurst and Elizabeth Jane Alexander, whose family was from Belfast, Ireland. A.A. Thorne remained happily married with Violet for the rest of his long life, and Violet survived him and lived to her 100th year.

A.A. Thorne had 10 children including two sets of twins: Alfred Hubert Thorne (who became the Editor of the Argosy and Chronicle Newspapers in Guyana, who had daughters Patricia, Thelma, Joyce, Winifred and Iva); twin brothers Albert Athiel Thorne (a Chartered Accountant who had two children, Daphne and Leila) and Alfred McLean-Thorne (who studied law in the UK and worked as a justice of the peace in Guyana, and had six children: David, who studied and settled in the UK; John, who settled in the Netherlands; Lynn and Barbara, who both settled in New York; and Patrick, who lived in the Bahamas and Guyana, married Eslyn, together they had two distinguished children Katya and Maxim both living in the United States); twin sisters Alfreda (attended college in Barbados) and Elfreda (who had two children: Audrey Maud and Dennis Fields, who settled in the UK); Alfred P. Thorne, PhD (PhD from Columbia University, Economics professor and Fulbright Scholar); Duncan John Vivian Thorne, DMD (DMD from University of Pennsylvania, New York City-based Doctor of Orthodontics and accomplished Entrepreneur who married Audrey Pauline Odell); Arthur George Thorne (who resided in Barbados and provided care for his mother Violet as she entered her 100th year); Aileen Roselle Callender (who became the first black female manager for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, whose office was in the World Trade Center, and whose daughter Jan Callender resides in Dallas, Texas); and Cecil Michael Thorne, MD (an accomplished Physician, Chief of Staff at a leading private hospital in Ohio, faculty member at The Ohio State University Medical School, Medical Degree from Johannes Gutenberg University Medical School in Mainz, Germany; Rotary International Member for more than 50 years, Salutatorian of his graduating class at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania from where he graduated in only two years, and who married Sandra Janette Marsh of Ohio, with whom he had four children - all of whom are distinguished alums of Harvard University).

Publications
  • 'On Industrial Training in British Guiana', Timehri, 1911 & 1912
  • 'Education in British Guiana, Part I', Timehri, 1911 [14]
  • 'Education in British Guiana, Part II', Timehri, Vol. 11, (third series), (1912).
  • 'British Guianese Progress and Limitations', Timehri, Vo1. II, (third series), (1912).
  • 'The Negro and his Descendants in British Guiana', Negro: An Anthology, N. Cunard (Ed.), 1934
  • 'A.A. Thorne v. The Argosy Co., Ltd. and W. Macdonald' (BiblioLife Network, Harvard Law School Library), 1905

References
  1. History Today: Alfred Athiel Thorne, Stabroek News, Monday, Feb. 10, 1997.
  2. History of the Republic of Guyana, http://www.guyana.org, Chapter 8, last accessed on January 18, 2013.
  3. Norman E. Cameron, 150 Years of Education In Guyana (1808 - 1957) with special reference to Post-Primary Education, last accessed January 18, 2013].
  4. The Guyana and Caribbean Political and Cultural Center for Popular Education, Guyanacaribbeanpolitics.com, last accessed January 18, 2013.
  5. History of the Republic of Guyana, http://www.guyana.org, Chapter 6, last accessed on January 18, 2013.
  6. CORPOKATE BODIES. TOWN COUNCIL,— GEORGETOWN, in Ordinance 28 o/ 1898.
  7. Thorne v. the Argosy Co., Ltd., et al in Making of Modern Law: Trials, 1600-1926.
  8. Libel Action A.A. Thorne v The Argosy Co., Ltd. and W. Macdonald, last accessed on January 18, 2013.
  9. Clement Toolsie Shiwcharan, INDIANS IN BRITISH GUIANA, 1919-1929: A STUDY IN EFFORT AND ACHIEVEMENT, A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK CENTRE FOR CARIBBEAN STUDIES, OCTOBER 1990.
  10. Norman Faria, Review, Outstanding history of Caribbean labour , Guyana Chronicle, February 9, 2003
  11. Winston James, Holding Aloft the Banner of Ethiopia: Caribbean Radicalism in Early Twentieth-Century America
  12. Joyce Moore Turner, W. Burghardt Turner, Caribbean Crusaders And The Harlem Renaissance
  13. A. A. Thorne, The Negro and his Descendants in British Guiana, in Negro: An Anthology collected by Nancy Cunard, New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Group, 1934.
  14. TIMEHRI: THE JOURNAL OF BRITISH GUIANA. Joseph J. Nunan, B.A. et al. (Eds). Education in British Guiana, Part I. Vol. I. (Third Series), 1911. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from University of Toronto, last accessed January 18, 2013.


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