Born at Dunlannon.
Enlisted at Dublin on the 19th of May 1846.
Age: 18.
Height: 5' 7".
Trade: Nailer.
Embarked for the Crimea aboard the H.T. "Medora" on the 27th of April 1854.
From Private to Corporal: 8th of June 1856.
Corporal to Sergeant: 17th of September 1857.
Embarked for India from Cork aboard the S.S. "Great Britain" on the 8th of October 1857.
Died at Meerut, India, on the 21st of July 1861.
Next of kin: Mother, Margaret Thornton, living No. 5 Upper Court, Dublin.
Entitled to the Crimean medal with clasps for Alma, Balaclava, Inkerman, and Sebastopol.
Mutiny medal with clasp for Central India.
He left no will, his credits being £38/7/9d.
The India Office records show John Thornton died of "cholera" at Meerut on the 21st of July 1861, aged 33 years. He was buried on the same day by the Reverend J.E.W. Rotten, Chaplain, in the Cantonment Cemetery..
His name is recorded on a tablet placed on a wall of St. John's Garrison Church at Meerut.
Bearing some 22 names of N.C.O.s of the regiment who died in India between 1858 and 1861, the tablet has the word 8th Hussars at the top, underneath the Regimental motto in a scroll and at the base:
"This memorial is a melancholy tribute of respect and esteem in affectionate remembrance of comrades in many a trying day and hard fought field is erected by their surviving brother Non-Commissioned Officers."
(There is a photograph of this in the 8th Hussar file.)
(See also the record of 979 Thomas Hanrahan, 8th Hussars, who died at Nusserabad on the 22nd of October 1859, aged 30 years. He too is recorded on the Meerut tablet.)