Colonel John Champion Faunthorpe MC CBE (30 May 1871 – 1 December 1929) was a British Army officer, big game hunter and sport shooter.

After working briefly in the United States as part of the British Embassy, he returned to India to join Arthur Stannard Vernay on an expedition to collect specimens of South Asian mammals for the American Museum of Natural History.

He was posted to various locations in India, including Bahraich (1901), Muzaffarnagar (1905) and Kheri (1907), though he was on leave in England in 1914 when World War I broke out.

and awarded the Military Cross, and in 1922 was appointed aide-de-camp to King George V.[3] He was Commissioner of Lucknow with Sir Harcourt Butler as governor when he was faced with the Eka Movement, the rise of tenant farmers and landless against Indian landlords.

[8][9] Faunthorpe believed that many bright young men entered the service in India simply because of the appeal of hunting that would be available to them.

Although Faunthorpe used monocles (until he heard that they were unpopular in the United States) and came to be called "Old Blind Eye" he was renowned for his sharp shooting.

During the Vernay-Faunthorpe Expedition (1922-1923) he worked with princely states and local governments to collect specimens including those of lions in Kathiawar, tigers, leopards, and elephants in Kheri, Bhopal, and Mysore.

When the Vernay-Faunthorpe Hall in the American Museum of Natural History was opened in 1930, Sir Harcourt Butler spoke on the work of his late colleague.