Sir Colin Hardwick Thornley KCMG CVO (1907 – 1 March 1983) was a British colonial administrator. He was Governor of British Honduras from 1955/6 to 1961.[1]
Life
editHe was the son of John Hardwick Thornley, a physician in Scarborough and son of the Rev. John James Thornley of Workington, and his wife Kathleen Irene Taylor, daughter of Thomas Albert Oak(e)s Taylor of the Clarence Iron Works, Leeds, and sister of Tom Taylor.[1][2][3][4][5][6] He was educated at Bramcote School and Uppingham School, and graduated from Brasenose College, Oxford.[1]
Thornley joined the Colonial Administrative Service, and was in the Tanganyika Territory, from 1930 to 1939.[1] Then in the Colonial Office in London he became Principal Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for the Colonies. Internally he expressed the opinion that reverses in World War II's initial stages had some relation with the lack of connection between the British Empire and its subjects, a criticism raised by US allies.[7]
From 1945 to 1952 Thornley was involved in the administration of Kenya Colony.[1] He assisted Governor Sir Philip Mitchell in defusing the contentious proposal for universal fingerprinting there, after the commission led by Bertrand Glancy had caused deadlock and Albert George Keyser insisted on further debate.[8] He moved to be Chief Secretary to the Protectorate of Uganda, 1952 to 1955. He was then Governor of British Honduras to 1961, retiring in 1962.[1]
Thornley was appointed Director-General of the Save the Children Fund in 1965, a post he held to 1974.[1]
Family
editThornley married in 1940 Muriel Betty Hobson, daughter of Henry Overton Hobson M.B. They had a son and two daughters.[1][9]
References
edit- ^ a b c d e f g h "Thornley, Sir Colin (Hardwick)". Who's Who. A & C Black. Retrieved 11 September 2021. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- ^ "Thornley, John James (THNY863JJ)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
- ^ "[Dr. John Hardwick Thornley]". The British Medical Journal. 2 (4119): 1209. 1939. ISSN 0007-1447. JSTOR 20314957.
- ^ Who's who in Yorkshire (North and East Ridings). Jakeman. 1935. p. 242.
- ^ "Taylor, Tom Lancelot (TLR896TL)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
- ^ "Thomas Albert Oakes Taylor - Graces Guide". www.gracesguide.co.uk.
- ^ Wolton, S. (21 June 2000). Lord Hailey, the Colonial Office and Politics of Race and Empire in the Second World War: The Loss of White Prestige. Springer. pp. 49–50. ISBN 978-0-230-51476-8.
- ^ Frost, Richard A. (1979). "Sir Philip Mitchell, Governor of Kenya". African Affairs. 78 (313): 543. doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a097150. ISSN 0001-9909. JSTOR 721757.
- ^ Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Peerage, Baronetage, and Knightage, Privy Council, and Order of Preference. Burke's Peerage Limited. 1963. p. 18.
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