John "Jack" Travers Cornwell was born as the third child of a working-class family at Clyde Place, Leyton, Essex (now in Greater London).

At 17:30 hours, Chester soon came under intense fire from four Kaiserliche Marine cruisers each her own size which had suddenly emerged from the haze and increasing funnel smoke of the battlefield.

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.

The citation read: 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.

The impoverished Alice Cornwell died at the age of 48[citation needed] 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 Alice's death, but this proved insufficient and they both emigrated to Canada in the early 1920s.

Salisbury's portrait of Cornwell hangs in the Anglican church within the Royal Navy's Initial Training Establishment HMS Raleigh.

[6] The John Cornwell Victoria Cross National Memorial (JCVCNM) was established in 1928, when a plot of land was purchased at Hornchurch, then in Essex, with money raised by the Mayor of East Ham.

There, a community of cottage homes was built for needy, disabled or infirm former sailors and Royal Marines, up to and including the rank of Warrant Officer and their families.

[8] Camp Cornwell, established in 1925 as the headquarters for Western Australian Sea Scouts is situated at Pelican Point on the Swan River near Perth.

[citation needed] In Canada, Royal Canadian Sea Cadet Corps John Travers Cornwell, VC, based at HMCS Chippawa in Winnipeg, MB is named after him.

[10] 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.

[12] In September 2006, Jack Cornwell VC featured on one of a series of Royal Mail postage stamps marking the 150th anniversary of the Victoria Cross.

[13] In 2016, Jack Cornwell was featured on a £5 coin (issued in silver and gold) in a six-coin set commemorating the Centenary of the First World War produced by the Royal Mint.

Mount Cornwell (2,972 metres) is a peak in the High Rock Range in British Columbia, part of the Canadian Rockies, which was named in his honour in 1918.