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- Lieutenant Colonel John Ford Elkington DSO (3 February 1866 – 27 June 1944) was a British Army officer. Elkington attended Elizabeth College in Guernsey and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He was commissioned into the Royal Warwickshire Regiment in 1886. Elkington served with the West African Frontier Force, with British forces in the Second Boer War and in India. In 1914 he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and given command of his regiment's 1st battalion. Elkington deployed to France at the start of the First World War with his unit and saw action at the 26 August Battle of Le Cateau during the Great Retreat from Mons. That afternoon the battalion retreated to Saint-Quentin, Aisne where it became mixed with the 2nd battalion of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. The men were exhausted and hungry and Elkington was disappointed at finding no onward transport in the town. The Dublins' commander, Lieutenant Colonel Mainwaring, entered into a written agreement with the town's mayor to surrender rather than fight in the streets, though Elkington stated he did not see the agreement. The following day a cavalry major arrived in the town and by threats and encouragement succeeded in marching the men and other stragglers out of the town and away from advancing German forces. Two weeks after the incident Elkington was charged with cowardice at a court-martial. Though cleared of the main charge he was convicted of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman and, with Mainwaring, was cashiered. Elkington applied to rejoin the army as a private but was refused and instead travelled to Paris to join the French Foreign Legion. In late Spring 1915 he fought at the Second Battle of Artois and received the Croix de Guerre for bravery in rescuing a detachment of his unit. Elkington was wounded in the leg by machine-gun fire while leading an assault in the Second Battle of Champagne on 28 September 1915. He spent the next 10 months in hospital but received a palm to his Croix de Guerre and was awarded the Médaille Militaire on the orders of General Joseph Joffre. News of the awards reached the British press and in September 1916 he returned to a hero's welcome. Elkington was reinstated to his previous rank in the army and appointed to the Distinguished Service Order by George V. Elkington's wound left him with difficulties walking and he retired from the army in 1918. In retirement he lived in Burghclere, Hampshire. After his son was killed in the Second World War Elkington commissioned a stained glass window in the local church. He died before it was completed and it was unveiled, with a plaque in Elkington's honour, by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery in 1946. (en)
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- John Elkington, painted by William Orpen in 1916 (en)
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- Lieutenant Colonel John Ford Elkington DSO (3 February 1866 – 27 June 1944) was a British Army officer. Elkington attended Elizabeth College in Guernsey and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He was commissioned into the Royal Warwickshire Regiment in 1886. Elkington served with the West African Frontier Force, with British forces in the Second Boer War and in India. In 1914 he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and given command of his regiment's 1st battalion. Elkington deployed to France at the start of the First World War with his unit and saw action at the 26 August Battle of Le Cateau during the Great Retreat from Mons. That afternoon the battalion retreated to Saint-Quentin, Aisne where it became mixed with the 2nd battalion of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. The men were exhausted (en)
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