John Henderson Elliott was the son of Thomas Partis Elliott, a bank cashier.

His father died when he was only 4 years old, and he was living with his mother, Jane Elliott, and his grandmother in Marine Approach when he joined the High School from St John's Elementary School.

John left at the end of 1909 to join Ronnoldson's (the shipyard and engineering works) to be an engineer, later working as a civil engineer for David Balfour, consulting engineer in Newcastle.

He joined the volunteer force of the Durham Light Infantry on 25-Sep-1914 for 4 years service, serving as a Private, Lance-Coporal, Corporal and then, on 7-Apr-1915, was promoted to Sergeant.

John was mobilised to the Machine Gun Corps on 1-May-1915, serving in the Home Campaign, but was suffering from "eye trouble".

By the time John was demobilised to the reserve, on 11-May-1919, he was suffering from severe short-sightedness, officially noted as having been aggravated by his service. However, it was not considered sufficient to warrant any disability award.

He is believed to have died in York in 1970.