Baroness Dorothy Thornhill, MBE

House of Lords

Dorothy is married to Cllr Iain Sharpe and has two adult children. By profession she is a teacher of children with Learning and Behaviour difficulties at secondary school. She taught locally for 25 years.

Having been a councillor for several years she stood and was elected as Watford’s first Directly Elected Mayor and the first female Mayor in the country. She describes it as a truly unique job which she loved ( most of the time!) and felt privileged to do. She was
re-elected in 2006, 2010, and 2014 and it was during these years that she first came across the, then, Watford New Hope Trust.

“I was so struck by the commitment and professionalism of the Trust that, for a couple of years, I thought it was part of a national charity. On discovering it was well and truly home grown, it became one of my ten best things about Watford of which I boasted regularly.”

Dorothy was awarded an MBE for services to local government in 2011 and a Life Peerage in 2015.