[5] Laughton was educated at the Royal Institution School, Liverpool, and then at Caius College, Cambridge, graduating BA (34th wrangler) in 1852.
[6] He served with the Royal Navy as a civilian shipboard instructor teaching mathematics, science and navigation, and saw combat in the Baltic and Far East campaigns.
[8] With this new approach, Laughton ‘acted as a catalyst for [the] entire intellectual development' of naval history as an independent discipline.
[10] In 1885 he left the Royal Navy to accept the position of professor of modern history at King's College, London.
[10][11] Laughton died at the age of 85 on 14 September 1915 and was buried at sea in the Thames Estuary from the decks of HMS Conqueror.
Professor Andrew Lambert has since added to this with a work, The Foundations of Naval History: John Knox Laughton, the Royal Navy and the Historical Profession.