Frank Thistlethwaite

Thistlethwaite was born on 24 July 1915 at 11 Powell Street, Burnley, Lancashire, the elder son of Lee Thistlethwaite (1885-1973), cotton cloth merchant and manufacturer, and his wife Florence Nightingale née Thornber (1892-1983),[1] youngest child of Sharp Thornber (1858-1933), cotton manufacturer, alderman and J.P., and Florence Nightingale (m. 1883; 1859-1917).[2] He was initially educated at Burnley Grammar School,[3] before attending Bootham School,[4][5] York and then St John's College, Cambridge (MA) and at the University of Minnesota.[6]

Thistlethwaite served in the RAF 1941–45, during which time he was seconded to work for the War Cabinet 1942-45. A fellow of St John's College, Cambridge, Thistlethwaite served as a lecturer in the Faculty of Economics and Politics at the University of Cambridge from 1949-61. He was founding chairman of the British Association for American Studies (1955–59). He became the first Vice-Chancellor of the University of East Anglia in 1961 and remained the post until 1980. He was appointed a CBE in 1979.

• The Great Experiment: An Introduction to the History of the American People (1955)
• The Anglo-American Connection in the Early Nineteenth Century (1958)
• Dorset Pilgrims: The Story of West Country Puritans who went to New England in the 17th Century (1989)
• A Lancashire Family Inheritance (1996)
• Our War 1938-45 (1997)

• Frank Thistlethwaite Archive, University of East Anglia