Percy Melville Thornton (29 December 1841 – 8 January 1918) was a British Conservative politician and author.

Three years later in 1866, Thornton won the half-mile race in the inaugural 1866 AAC Championships.

[1] Thornton rejected his family's adherence to Liberal politics and became a supporter of the Conservative party.

Thornton followed this with the three-volume Foreign Secretaries of the Nineteenth Century (1891), Harrow School and its Surroundings' (1883), The Brunswick Ascension (1887) and The Stuart Dynasty (1890).

Following his retirement from politics, he was elected to the position of Registrar of the Royal Literary Fund, and wrote an autobiography, Some Things I Have Remembered in 1911.