Vice President John Archer Preceded by John Archer Nationality New Zealand | Leader Harry Holland Name Jim Thorn | |
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Died 21 November 1956Thames | ||
James (Jim) Thorn (1 June 1882 – 21 November 1956) was a New Zealand politician of various labour parties.
Biography
He was born in Christchurch, educated at Christchurch Boys' High School. He was a bugler in the third New Zealand Contingent to the Boer War in 1900–1901; the experience turned him into a pacifist. He met his future wife while living in Palmerston North; Margaret Anderson (1897–1969), 15 years his junior, had joined the Social Democratic Party with her father. The Thorns married on 8 December 1917 in Wellington.
He worked in the Addington Railway Workshops and as a journalist. He was engaged in union and party activity, including 1909–1913 in England and Scotland. He became an organiser and candidate for the Social Democratic Party then the Labour Party. He was imprisoned for opposing conscription in World War I.
He unsuccessfully stood for the Independent Political Labour League in the Christchurch South electorate in the 1905 and 1908 elections. In 1909, he went to England and then Scotland and worked for labour parties there.
In 1914, he moved to Palmerston North and unsuccessfully stood in the 1914 election in the Palmerston electorate representing the Social Democratic Party against the incumbent David Buick and two others, with Buick getting elected. He was president of the Labour Party (1929–1931), and vice-president at various times (1925–1927; 1928–1929; 1936–1938), and national secretary (1932–1936).
He unsuccessfully stood in the Otaki electorate in the 1931 election. He represented the electorate of Thames from 1935 to 1946, when the seat was abolished. In the 1946 election, he contested the Otaki electorate again, but was beaten by National's James Joseph Maher.
From 1947 to 1950 he was High Commissioner to Canada, and was President of UNESCO in 1949. He died in 1956 and his ashes were buried at Karori Cemetery, Wellington.