Frank Thistlethwaite

Frank Thistlethwaite CBE (24 July 1915 – 17 February 2003) was an English academic who served as the first Vice-Chancellor of the University of East Anglia.

Frank Thistlethwaite

Early life

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]

Career

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.

Publications
  • 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)
gollark: What do Linux users do to change a lightbulb?First, a user creates a bug report, only for it to be closed with "could not reproduce" as the developers got to it in the day. Eventually, some nights later, someone realizes that it is actually a problem, and decides to start work on a fix, soliciting the help of other people.Debates soon break out on the architecture of the new lightbulb - should they replace it with an incandescent bulb (since the bulb which broke was one of those), try and upgrade it to a halogen or LED bulb, which are technically superior if more complex. or go to a simpler and perhaps more reliable solution such as a fire?While an LED bulb is decided on, they eventually, after yet more debate, deem off-the-shelf bulbs unsuitable, and decide to make their own using commercially available LED modules. However, some of the group working on this are unhappy with this, and splinter off, trying to set up their own open semiconductor production operation to produce the LEDs.Despite delays introduced by feature creep, as it was decided halfway through to also add RGB capability and wireless control, the main group still manages to produce an early alpha, and tests it as a replacement for the original bulb. Unfortunately it stops working after a few days of use, and debugging of the system suggests that the problem is because of their power supply - the bulb needs complex, expensive, and somewhat easily damaged circuitry to convert the mains AC power into DC suitable for the LEDs, and they got that bit a bit wrong.So they decide to launch their own power grid and lighting fixture standard, which is, although incompatible with every other device, technically superior, and integrates high-speed networking so they can improve the control hardware. Having completely retrofitted the house the original lightbulb failed in and put all their designs and code up on GitHub, they deem the project a success, and after only a year!
gollark: Minetest is already a thing.
gollark: It really isn't.
gollark: Most people of my generation just use popular social media apps on a locked down phone of some sort and may not know what a "file" or "terminal" or "potatOS" is.
gollark: It is, yes.

References
  1. National Biography: Thistlethwaite, accessed 9 Dec 2016
  2. TWO THORNBER FAMILIES IN BURNLEY, LANCASHIRE, ENGLAND: 1. A THORNBER FAMILY IN BURNLEY WITH ORIGINS IN GISBURN, YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND, accessed 9 Dec 2016
  3. The Times - Obituaries Accessed 2010
  4. "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography".
  5. Bootham Old Scholars Association (2011). Bootham School Register. York, England: BOSA.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  6. The Guardian - Obituaries Accessed 2010
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