View source for Jack Cornwell

{{Short description|Recipient of the Victoria Cross}}
{{Other people|John Cornwell}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2020}}
{{More citations needed|date=May 2011}}
{{Infobox military person
|name= John Travers Cornwell
|image= Jack Cornwell c.1915.jpg
|image_size=
|alt= 
|caption= The iconic image of Jack Cornwell as used by the press at the time of his death. It is nowadays thought to show a younger brother.<ref name="Imp1">{{cite web |title=Jack Cornwell And The HMS Chester Gun |url=https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/jack-cornwell-and-the-hms-chester-gun |website=IWM |publisher=[[Imperial War Museums]] |access-date=29 August 2025}}</ref><ref>[https://vcgca.org/our-people/profile/103/John-Travers-CORNWELL Portrait of Jack Cornwell at VCGA website accessed 20 October 2025]</ref>
|birth_date= {{birth date|1900|01|08|df=yes}}
|death_date= {{death date and age|1916|06|02|1900|01|08|df=yes}}
|birth_place= [[Leyton]], [[Essex]], England
|death_place= [[Grimsby]], England
|placeofburial= [[Manor Park Cemetery]], London
|nickname=
|allegiance=
|branch= {{navy|United Kingdom}}
|serviceyears= 1915–1916
|rank= [[Boy seaman|Boy 1st Class]]
|unit= {{HMS|Chester|1915|6}}
|commands= 
|battles= [[Battle of Jutland]] 
|awards= [[Victoria Cross]]
|relations= 
|laterwork= 
}}
'''John Travers Cornwell''' [[Victoria Cross|VC]] (8 January 1900{{ndash}}2 June 1916), commonly known as '''Jack Cornwell''' or as '''Boy Cornwell''', is remembered for his gallantry at the [[Battle of Jutland]] during World War I. Having died at the age of only 16, he was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and [[Commonwealth of Nations|Commonwealth]] forces. Cornwell is the third-youngest recipient of the VC after [[Andrew Fitzgibbon]] and [[Thomas Flynn (VC)|Thomas Flynn]].

==Biography==
===Early life===
John "Jack" Travers Cornwell was born as the third child of a working-class family at Clyde Place, [[Leyton]], [[Essex]] (now in Greater London). His parents were Eli and Lily Cornwell; he had a sister and three brothers, as well as two half-siblings from his father's previous marriage. The family later moved to Alverstone Road, [[East Ham]]. He left [[Walton Road School]] at the standard age of 14. At the outbreak of the First World War, his father, an ex-soldier, volunteered for service and fought in France. His older brother Arthur also served as an [[infantryman]] on the [[Western Front (World War I)|Western Front]].

In October 1915, Jack Cornwell gave up his job as a delivery boy and enlisted in the [[Royal Navy]] without his father's permission. He had references from his headmaster and employer. He carried out his basic training at [[HMS Vivid (shore establishment 1890)|HMS ''Vivid'' Keyham Naval Barracks]] in [[Plymouth]]. He received further training as a Sight Setter or Gun Layer and became a [[Boy Seaman]] 1st Class. On Easter Monday 1916, Cornwell left for [[Rosyth]], Scotland, to join [[HMS Chester (1915)|HMS ''Chester'']].

===Death during the Battle of Jutland===
[[File:JackCornwellsGunHMSChesterJutland.jpg|thumb|{{center|Jack Cornwell's gun, HMS ''Chester''}}]]
On 31 May 1916, ''Chester'' was scouting ahead of the [[3rd Battlecruiser Squadron]] at the [[Battle of Jutland]] when the ship turned to investigate gunfire in the distance. At 17:30 hours, ''Chester'' came under intense fire from four [[Imperial German Navy|''Kaiserliche Marine'']] cruisers that were each her own size. They had emerged from the haze and increasing funnel smoke of the battlefield. The shielded 5.5-inch gun mounting where Cornwell was serving as a sight-setter was affected by at least four nearby hits. ''Chester''{{'}}s gun mountings were open-backed shields and did not reach down to the deck. Splinters were thus able to pass under them or enter the open back when shells exploded nearby or behind. All the gun's crew were killed or mortally injured except Cornwell, who, although severely wounded, managed to stand up again and remain at his post for more than 15&nbsp;minutes, until ''Chester'' retired from the action with only one main battery gun still working. ''Chester'' had received 18 hits, but partial hull armour meant that the interior of the ship suffered little serious damage and the ship itself was never in peril of sinking. Nevertheless, the situation on deck was dire. British ships reported passing the ''Chester'' to cheers from limbless wounded gun crew laid out on her deck and smoking cigarettes, only to hear that the same crewmen had died a few hours later from blood loss and shock.

After the action, medics arrived on deck to find Cornwell the sole survivor standing at his gun, shards of steel penetrating his chest, looking at the [[gun sight]]s and still waiting for orders. Being incapable of further action, ''Chester'' was ordered to the port of [[Immingham]]. There Cornwell was transferred to [[Grimsby General Hospital]]. He died shortly before 8:00am on the morning of 2 June 1916, before his mother could arrive at the hospital.

===Burial===
[[File:Funeral Jack Cornwell 29 07 1916.png|thumb|right|The funeral procession at [[Manor Park, London|Manor Park]] on 29 July 1916]]
Jack Cornwell was initially buried in a common grave (Square 126 Grave 323) in [[Manor Park Cemetery]], London. His body was exhumed on 29 July 1916{{cn|date=August 2025}} and he was reburied with full military honours in the same cemetery (square 55 grave 13).<ref name="Com1">{{cite web |title=Boy 1st Class John Travers Cornwell |url=https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/355594/john-travers-cornwell/ |publisher=[[Commonwealth War Graves Commission]] |access-date=29 August 2025}}</ref> Cornwell's father Eli, who died aged 64 in October 1916 during home service with the [[Royal Defence Corps]], was buried in the same cemetery.<ref name="Com2">{{cite web |title=Private Eli Cornwell |url=https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/355593/eli-cornwell/ |publisher=[[Commonwealth War Graves Commission]] |access-date=29 August 2025}}</ref> The epitaph to Jack Cornwell on his grave monument reads "It is not wealth or ancestry but honourable conduct and a noble disposition that maketh men great." 

In May 2016, the family grave and war memorial, erected in 1920, was given [[Listed building|Grade II listed]] status, legally protecting it from unauthorised modification or removal.<ref name="His1">{{NHLE|num=1433403|desc=The John Travers Cornwell VC Memorial and Family Grave Marker|accessdate=4 August 2016}}</ref>

==Victoria Cross==
Though at first reluctant, the [[British Admiralty]] decided to recommend Cornwell for a posthumous [[Victoria Cross]] and King [[George V of the United Kingdom|George V]] endorsed it. The recommendation for citation, from [[David Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty|Admiral David Beatty]], reads: <blockquote>The instance of devotion to duty by Boy (1st Class) John Travers Cornwell who was mortally wounded early in the action, but nevertheless remained standing alone at a most exposed post, quietly awaiting orders till the end of the action, with the gun's crew dead and wounded around him. He was under 16½ years old. I regret that he has since died, but I recommend his case for special recognition in justice to his memory and as an acknowledgement of the high example set by him.</blockquote>

The award of the Victoria Cross appeared in ''[[The London Gazette]]'' on Friday 15 September 1916, the day before Cornwell's mother Alice received the Victoria Cross from King George V at [[Buckingham Palace]]. The citation read:<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=29752 |supp=y |page=9085 |date=15 September 1916}}</ref> <blockquote>The KING has been graciously pleased to approve the grant of the Victoria Cross to Boy, First Class, John Travers Cornwell, O.N.J.42563 (died 2 June 1916), for the conspicuous act of bravery specified below.

Mortally wounded early in the action, Boy, First Class, Jack Travers Cornwell remained standing alone at a most exposed post, quietly awaiting orders, until the end of the action, with the gun's crew dead and wounded all round him. His age was under sixteen and a half years.</blockquote>

==Commemoration==
[[File:Cornwell Cottages, Hornchurch - geograph.org.uk - 1254847.jpg|thumb|right|The John Cornwell Victoria Cross National Memorial cottages in [[Hornchurch]]]]
A portrait of Cornwell was painted by the [[court painter]] [[Frank O. Salisbury]], who used Cornwell's brother Ernest as a model, depicting him standing in his post. A ''Boy Cornwell Memorial Fund'' was established. After Eli Cornwell's death on 25 October 1916, his half-brother Arthur Frederick Cornwell was killed in action in France on 29 August 1918. Alice Cornwell died at the age of 48 on 31 October 1919, at 745 [[Commercial Road]] in Stepney, in rooms she was forced to take when her son's memorial fund refused financial aid. The two of her children remaining at home were granted £60 a year in a pension from the fund after her death, but this proved insufficient .They emigrated to Canada in the early 1920s. Cornwell's elder half-sister Alice lent the Victoria Cross to the [[Imperial War Museum]] in 1968. Salisbury's portrait of Cornwell hangs in the [[Anglican]] church within the Royal Navy's Initial Training Establishment [[HMS Raleigh (shore establishment)|HMS ''Raleigh'']].

The original furore caused by the boy's very public re-burial led to over seven million children of the [[British Empire]] donating to his fund. £18,000 was raised in his memory for the Jack Cornwell ward of the [[Royal Star and Garter Home, Richmond]].<ref name="Dav">{{cite book |last1=Davenport-Hines |first1=Richard |title=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |date=2004 |page=|chapter=Cornwell, John Travers [Jack] (1900–1916), naval hero |edition=|url-access=registration|url=https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/45719}}</ref> The John Cornwell Victoria Cross National Memorial was established in 1928, when a plot of land was purchased at [[Hornchurch]] with money raised by the Mayor of [[County Borough of East Ham|East Ham]], and a community of cottage homes was built for needy, disabled or infirm former sailors and [[Royal Marine]]s, up to and including the rank of [[Warrant Officer]] and their families. The six semi-detached houses and pathways are laid out in the form of a Victoria Cross. Since 2008, the community has been under the trusteeship of [[The Royal Naval Benevolent Trust]].<ref name="Roy1">{{cite web|url=http://www.rnbt.org.uk/care-home-housing/housing-jcvcnm#.Uu52cz1_u30|title=Housing: John Cornwell Victoria Cross National Memorial|website=|publisher=[[Royal Naval Benevolent Trust]]|access-date=2 February 2014|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140210135323/http://www.rnbt.org.uk/care-home-housing/housing-jcvcnm#.Uu52cz1_u30|archive-date=10 February 2014}}</ref>

===Commemoration by the Scouts===
[[File:Cornwell Scout Badge.jpg|thumb|upright=0.75|The Cornwell Scout Badge]]
[[The Scout Association|The Boy Scouts Association]] created an award in Cornwell's honour, the [[Cornwell Scout Badge]]. Used by [[Commonwealth of Nations|Commonwealth]] Scout associations, the badge is awarded to youth participants in respect of pre-eminently high character and devotion to duty, together with great courage and endurance.<ref name="Sco1">{{cite web |title=Meritorious Conduct and Gallantry Awards |url=https://www.scouts.org.uk/volunteers/learning-development-and-awards/awards-and-recognition/meritorious-conduct-and-gallantry-awards/ |publisher=[[The Scout Association]] |access-date=29 August 2025}}</ref> Camp Cornwell, established in 1925 as the headquarters for Western Australian [[Sea Scouts]] is situated at [[Pelican Point (Swan River)|Pelican Point]] on the [[Swan River (Western Australia)|Swan River]] near [[Perth, Western Australia|Perth]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.panoramio.com/photo/10298378 |title=Sea Scouts' Camp Cornwell – Western Australia |last1=Weaver |first1=P |date=17 May 2008 |website=www.panoramio.com |accessdate=31 January 2014}}</ref>{{dead link|date=August 2025}}

===Cadets===
Cornwell is remembered by the [[Sea Cadet Corps]], [[Army Cadet Force]] and the [[Air Training Corps]], who each have a unit based in the Cornwell VC Cadet Centre in East Ham. Newham (Cornwell VC) Sea Cadets have been honoured with 'J T Cornwell VC' on their cap ribbon (Cap Tally) instead of the customary TS (training ship). They are the only Sea Cadet Unit in the UK to have this honour. In 2003, the Cadets suggested commemorating Cornwell by renaming his former school in Leyton after him. Cornwell is remembered by Royal Navy [[Combined Cadet Force]] (RN CCF) divisions such as the RN CCF section at [[Whitgift School]], Croydon, which is named the "Cornwell" division in his honour.

The [[Royal Canadian Sea Cadets|Royal Canadian Sea Cadet]] Corps John Travers Cornwell, VC, based at {{HMCS|Chippawa}} in [[Winnipeg]], is named after Cornwell.

===Other memorials===
In [[Little Ilford]], Jack Cornwell Street and a nearby block of [[Public housing|council]] [[Apartment|flats]] called John Cornwell VC House are named in his memory.{{cn|date=August 2025}} A [[blue plaque]] has been erected by the [[London Borough of Waltham Forest]] on the flats that now occupy the site of his birthplace in Clyde Place, Leyton.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.walthamforest.gov.uk/pages/services/planning-conservation-areas.aspx |title=Waltham Forest Heritage Plaques |date=23 January 2014 |website=www.walthamforest.gov.uk |publisher=London Borough of Waltham Forest |access-date=2 February 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140120040530/http://www.walthamforest.gov.uk/Pages/Services/Planning-conservation-areas.aspx |archive-date=20 January 2014}}</ref> The [[BL 5.5&nbsp;inch/ 50 naval gun|5.5-inch gun]] on which he served is displayed in the Imperial War Museum, London.<ref name="Imp1" /> In September 2006, Cornwell featured on one of a series of [[Royal Mail]] postage stamps marking the 150th anniversary of the Victoria Cross.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.norvic-philatelics.co.uk/2006/09-vicx.htm |title=GB New Stamps and Special Postmarks – 150th Anniversary of the Victoria Cross – 21 September 2006 |date=11 September 2006 |website=www.norvic-philatelics.co.uk |publisher=Norvic Philatelics |accessdate=2 February 2014}}</ref> In 2016, he was featured on a £5 coin in a six-coin set commemorating the centenary of the First World War produced by the Royal Mint.<ref name=rmin>{{cite web |url=https://onlinecoin.club/Coins/Country/United_Kingdom/Five_Pounds_2016_Jack_Cornwell/ |title=Five Pounds 2016 Jack Cornwell |accessdate=28 August 2020}}</ref>{{better source|date=August 2025}}

[[Mount Cornwell (Canada)|Mount Cornwell]] ({{convert|2972|m}}) is a peak in the [[High Rock Range]] in [[British Columbia]] was named in Cornwell's honour in 1918.{{sfn|Birrell|2000|pp=135{{ndash}}136}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Sources==
* {{cite book |last1=Birrell |first1=Dave |title=50 Roadside Panoramas in the Canadian Rockies' |date=2000 |publisher=Rocky Mountain Books |isbn=978-0-921102-65-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OaB-yf_MJXMC&dq=}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite book |last1=Anon. |title=Jack Cornwell |date=1918 |publisher=Hodder and Stoughton Limited |url=https://archive.org/details/jackcornwell0000vari/page/n7/mode/2up |ref=none}}

==External links==
{{Commons category|Jack Cornwell VC}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070814061819/http://www.scouting.milestones.btinternet.co.uk/cornwell.htm The Cornwell Award - The Badge of Courage] by C.R. Walker
* [http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/search?query=jack+cornwell&items_per_page=10 Records of objects related to Cornwell] at the [[Imperial War Museum]], London
* [http://files.balancer.ru/forums/attaches/9e/96/9e960b8a738801138ae1fc1e86f47145.jpg Frank O. Salisbury's portrait] of Cornwell
* {{Lives of WWI | id= 6323894 | name= John Travers Cornwell }} from the Imperial War Museums website
* [https://www.scouts.org.uk/about-us/our-history/our-online-exhibitions/scouting-personalities/jack-cornwell/ Jack Cornwell] from the [[Scout Association]] website (biographical details and information about the Cornwell Badge)

{{Authority control|state=collapsed}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cornwell, John}}
[[Category:British World War I recipients of the Victoria Cross]]
[[Category:Royal Navy sailors]]
[[Category:Military personnel from the London Borough of Waltham Forest]]
[[Category:Royal Navy personnel of World War I]]
[[Category:British military personnel killed in World War I]]
[[Category:1900 births]]
[[Category:1916 deaths]]
[[Category:The Scout Association]]
[[Category:People associated with Scouting]]
[[Category:People from Leyton]]
[[Category:Royal Navy recipients of the Victoria Cross]]
[[Category:People from Manor Park, London]]
[[Category:Child soldiers in World War I]]
[[Category:Children killed in World War I]]