Charles Thornhill (1814 – 31 August 1881) was an English cricketer who played in six matches for Cambridge University that have since been judged to have been first-class.
[1][2] He was born at Hemingford Grey, Huntingdonshire and died at Milestown, Castlebellingham, County Louth, Ireland.
[1] He appeared for Cambridge University in one or two matches each season from 1837 to 1840 and he made, by the standards of the time, some good scores: against the Cambridge Town Club in 1838, for instance, he top-scored with 32 out of a total of 99 in the first innings.
[3] His post-Cambridge career is not clear: in the directory of Cambridge alumni, he is cited as formerly a captain in the 14th King's Light Dragoons, but it also states that after graduation, when that regiment was sent on a 20-year tour of duty in India, Thornhill was ordained into the Church of England as a deacon, serving as curate at Wark on Tyne in 1842 and 1843.
[3] At his death in 1881 in Ireland, he was noted in a newspaper as having been formerly the vicar of Burwell, Cambridgeshire.