Alfred A. Thorne

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]

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. Thorne was elected to the Combined Court in 1906. He served as Deputy Mayor in 1921, 1922 and 1925. He was elected to the national post of Financial Representative for the North West District and New Amsterdam (1906-1911 and 1916-1921).[1]

Thorne led British Guiana Labour Union, the country's first worker's union, and 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 West 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 had been natives of the land now occupied and taken over under the forces of European imperialism.

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

A.A. Thorne was first 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 and the sugar industry over all other economic sectors in the country.[2] After the Argosy newspaper in Georgetown retaliated, A. A. Thorne was awarded $500 by the courts in a successful claim of libel. The now famous court case is documented in Making of Modern Law: Trials, 1600-1926.[7][8] Thorne entered national politics in 1906 with his successful election to the national Court of Policy post and won re-election again in 1916.

Alfred Athiel Thorne was born in Barbados. 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 graduated from 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 completed his secondary education at the Lodge School in St John, Barbados. After graduating from Lodge School, Thorne graduated #1 rank in his class at Codrington College, the leading preparatory college in Barbados which was traditionally attended by sons of the local gentry and plantocracy prior to attending an English university. Codrington College was founded in 1710, and its current campus was built in 1745. 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 exam. 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 commitment to provide the award to Thorne, the undisputed highest-scoring student that year on the national exam. Instead, they offered the scholarship to a white student who earned the second-place score on the national exam. Revealing what would prove to be a lifetime of standing up for justice, an individual of integrity 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. 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 graduate from Durham University, earning not one, but two degrees, and graduating with honors. He was the first person of African heritage in the British Empire to earn two degrees from a university in England -- and achieved them with Honors.

After earning two 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, but became a young widower due to her untimely death. Thereafter, Thorne met 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: Alfred Hubert Thorne (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, an accomplished economist, college professor and Fulbright Scholar); Duncan John Vivian Thorne, DMD (DMD from University of Pennsylvania, New York City-based orthodontist and 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 and whose office was in the World Trade Center, whose daughter Jan Callender resides in Dallas, Texas); and his tenth and final offspring was Cecil Michael Thorne, MD (an accomplished Physician, who served as the Chief of Staff for a leading private hospital in Ohio and as a faculty member at The Ohio State University Medical School, who married Sandra Janette Marsh, with whom he had four children -- all becoming distinguished alums of Harvard University — and he served as a Rotary International Member for more than 50 years, after having been Salutatorian of his graduating class from Lincoln University (from where he graduated in only two years) and earning his Medical Degree from Johannes Gutenberg University Medical School in Mainz, Germany, and receiving additional medical training in France and Denmark before completing is medical residency in Massachusetts).

• '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