Ada Thorne (1897-1981) was the Head of Acquisitions of the Shelby Company Limited and a member of the Peaky Blinders gang. She was the younger sister of the gang's leaders Tommy and Arthur Shelby and the wife of communist agitator Freddie Thorne.
Biography[]
Ada Shelby was born in Small Heath, Birmingham, England in 1897, the daughter of Irish immigrant worker Arthur Shelby, Sr. and a Romani mother. She was the younger sister of Arthur Shelby, Tommy Shelby, and John Shelby and the older sister of Finn Shelby. She received some medical training as a teenager, and she fell in love with her brothers' friend Freddie Thorne, who served alongside Tommy in the British Army during World War I before becoming a CPGB union organizer and communist agitator. Thorne, who shared his views, had a secret affair with her, meeting under a bridge before trysting elsewhere. She married hm after she became pregnant with his child, and she moved to London after her husband died of the Spanish Influenza in 1920. Because of her communist political views, she came to oppose her brothers' trade, but she allowed for her brother Tommy to periodically visit her and ensure her welfare.