| Agathe Thornton | |
| Birth Name: | Agathe Schwarzschild |
| Birth Date: | 20 November 1910 |
| Birth Place: | Germany |
| Death Place: | Dunedin, New Zealand |
| Nationality: | New Zealand |
| Occupation: | Academic |
| Professor, Professor Emeritus (from 1975) | |
| Spouse: | Harry Thornton |
| Parents: | Karl Schwarzschild (father) Else Schwarzschild (mother) |
| Relatives: | Martin Schwarzschild (brother) Alfred Schwarzschild (brother) |
| Education: | University of Göttingen Newnham College, Cambridge |
| Discipline: | Classics Māori language |
| Workplaces: | University of Otago |
| Notable Works: | People and themes in Homer's Odyssey (1970) |
Agathe Henriette Franziska Thornton (née Schwarzschild; 20 November 1910 – 21 October 2006)[1] was a New Zealand academic specialising in classics and Māori studies. She was born in Germany and moved to New Zealand in 1947. She taught in the classics department of the University of Otago from 1948, eventually being appointed professor of classics, until her retirement in 1975.
Thornton was born Agathe Schwarzschild on 20 November 1910.[2] Her father was the physicist Karl Schwarzschild (1873-1916), her mother was Else Schwarzschild née Rosenbach; and she had two younger brothers, the German-American physicist Martin Schwarzschild (1912-1997), and Alfred Schwarzschild (1914-1944).[3] While living in Germany she studied at the University of Göttingen.
In 1933 she moved to the United Kingdom, fleeing Nazi Germany because of Jewish heritage on her father's side. There she studied at Newnham College, Cambridge, supported by the astronomer Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, and with financial aid from an anonymous donor who was later identified as Sir Arthur Eddington. At the outbreak of World War II she avoided internment on the Isle of Man thanks to support from W. H. M. Greaves, the Astronomer Royal for Scotland, who stood bail for her. In Scotland she met and married the Presbyterian minister Harry Thornton.
Thornton published her first academic article in 1945 while living in Newmachar, Aberdeenshire.[4] In 1947 her family moved to New Zealand, and from 1948 onwards both Agathe and her husband Harry taught as lecturers at the University of Otago in Dunedin.[5] Her appointment was the occasion for overturning a university prohibition on hiring married women with children. In 1970 she published her best-known book, People and Themes in Homer's Odyssey.
After retirement in 1975, she continued publishing in the field of classics, while also learning the Māori language for the purpose of scholarship. In 1986 she presented the Macmillan Brown Lectures at the University of Otago on the theme 'Maori oral literature as seen by a classicist'.[6] These lectures were published the following year in a book of the same title.
Her subsequent research publications were in the field of Māori studies. These included new editions of Māori oral literature (Te Uamairangi's lament for his house, 1986; The story of Maui by Te Rangikaheke, 1992), studies of Māori cosmological myths (Ancient Maori cosmologies from the Wairarapa, 1998; The birth of the universe. Te whānautanga o te ao tukupū, 2004), and articles on linguistics and oral narrative techniques.