{{short description|British politician}} {{Use dmy dates|date=February 2016}} {{Use British English|date=February 2016}} {{Infobox sportsperson |name= Percy Thornton |image= 150px |caption= Caricature by Spy for ''Vanity Fair magazine'' |birth_date= 29 December 1841 |birth_place= | death_date = 8 January 1918 (aged 77) | death_place = |sport= |event= |club= }} '''Percy Melville Thornton''' (29 December 1841 – 8 January 1918) was a British Conservative politician and author.
== Biography == Thornton was the oldest surviving son of Rear Admiral Samuel Thornton (c.1797-1859) & his wife Emily Elizabeth née Rice. His grandfather was the abolitionist MP Samuel Thornton and his uncle was Henry Thornton, founder of the Clapham Sect.<ref name=obit>''Death of Percy Thornton, Athlete and Author'', The Times, 8 January 1918, p.9</ref>
Thornton attended Harrow School and Jesus College, Cambridge.<ref>{{acad|id=THNN860PM|name=Thornton, Percy Melville}}</ref> His interest in athletics led to him becoming secretary of Cambridge University Athletics Club in 1863. Three years later in 1866, Thornton won the half-mile race in the inaugural 1866 AAC Championships.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000355/18660324/082/0008 |title=Amateur Athletic Club |work=Bell's Life in London and Sporting Chronicle |date=24 March 1866 |via=British Newspaper Archive|url-access=subscription |access-date=19 July 2024}}</ref>
He was also a keen cricketer, inspired by his cousin Charles Inglis Thornton. From 1871 to 1899, he was Honorary Secretary of Middlesex County Cricket Club.<ref name=obit/>
In 1877, Thornton married his second cousin, Florence Emily Thornton, daughter of the banker Henry Sykes Thornton. In 1880, he took up residence at the family home in Clapham.<ref name=obit/>
Thornton rejected his family's adherence to Liberal politics and became a supporter of the Conservative party. In 1880, he began his writing career with the pamphlet ''Recovered Thread of England's Foreign Policy'', which espoused Conservative policies. Thornton followed this with the three-volume ''Foreign Secretaries of the Nineteenth Century'' (1891), ''Harrow School and its Surroundings''' (1883), ''The Brunswick Ascension'' (1887) and ''The Stuart Dynasty'' (1890).<ref name=obit/>
At the general election of 1892, Thornton was elected as MP for Clapham. He successfully defended the seat three times before retiring from parliament in 1910. Following his retirement from politics, he was elected to the position of Registrar of the Royal Literary Fund, and wrote an autobiography, ''Some Things I Have Remembered'' in 1911.<ref name=obit/>
== References == {{Reflist}}
== External links == {{commons category|Percy Thornton}} * {{Hansard-contribs | mr-percy-thornton | Percy Thornton }}
{{s-start}} {{s-par|uk}} {{succession box | title = Member of Parliament for Clapham | years = 1892 – Jan. 1910 | before = John Saunders Gilliat | after = Denison Faber }} {{s-end}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Thornton, Percy Melville}} Category:Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Category:UK MPs 1892–1895 Category:UK MPs 1895–1900 Category:UK MPs 1900–1906 Category:UK MPs 1906–1910 Category:1841 births Category:1918 deaths Category:People educated at Harrow School Category:Alumni of Jesus College, Cambridge Category:English writers Category:English cricketers Category:Cambridge University cricketers Category:Middlesex cricketers Category:Gentlemen of the South cricketers