John was born in 1895 in Wilmslow, Cheshire. His father, Joseph Henry, was a self-employed agricultural engineer with a small business in Wilmslow employing several people. John lived with his father and mother Grace, in Dean Row, Wilmslow. There were two younger children, Harry and Edith, and the family employed Edith Vine, born in 1884 in Sandbach, Cheshire, as a domestic servant.

When John left school in 1909 he travelled to Stamford to be an apprentice fitter at a local engineering works. In 1911 he was lodging at 21 Burghley Houses with Richard and Anne Clark. They had no children but there were two other boarders beside John, Harold Plummer, a draughtsman, aged 21, and Leland H Lowe, a wheelwright, aged 23 (see Ernest Henry Dunn). All four men gave their place of work as ‘iron works’.

There is no war record for John but he completed his apprenticeship and is thought to have returned to Cheshire where his death was registered in Stockport in June 1945.