Dorothy Thompson (née Towers) (born 1923) is a social historian, a leading expert on the Chartist movement. She entered Girton College, Cambridge, in 1942. During the war, her work as an industrial draughtswoman for Royal Dutch Shell interrupted her formal education. Nonetheless, she continued to pursue a career in history and was politically active. She joined the Young Communists, married the historian Edward Thompson in 1948, and moved to Hali...
more
Dorothy Thompson (née Towers) (born 1923) is a social historian, a leading expert on the Chartist movement. She entered Girton College, Cambridge, in 1942. During the war, her work as an industrial draughtswoman for Royal Dutch Shell interrupted her formal education. Nonetheless, she continued to pursue a career in history and was politically active. She joined the Young Communists, married the historian Edward Thompson in 1948, and moved to Halifax where they both worked in adult education and the peace movement. They had three children. Kate Thompson, the award-winning children's writer, is their youngest child.
In 1968 Dorothy Thompson took a teaching post at the University of Birmingham. She taught in the School of History from 1968 to 1988. In January 2006 she was presented with a festschrift, The Duty of Discontent. Edited by Owen Ashton, Stephen Roberts (both former students of Dorothy Thompson) and Robert Fyson, the volume consists of twelve essays, spanning the whole range of...
less
