CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
EN/FR
Search
Menu
Research dossier · General Reference

James Thornton (songwriter)

American songwriter and vaudeville performer (1861-1938)

Cross-disciplinary reference desk with index cards, atlas, dictionary and catalogue
General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionFeb 15, 2026
Entity authorityQ6144251 ↗
Source-derived summary

James Thornton (December 5, 1861 – July 27, 1938) was an Irish-American songwriter and vaudeville performer. He is primarily remembered today as the composer of the 1898 song, "When You Were Sweet Sixteen".

Career

Thornton started his career as a "singing waiter" in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, and then achieved success with his then-wife, Elisabeth "Bonnie" Cox, in music halls throughout the US as what was then called a "serio-comic" or "monologist" (essentially a stand-up comic) and singer. During his career, he also performed in a vaudeville team with Charles B. Lawlor.

Thornton's compositions included: "When You Were Sweet Sixteen", "She May Have Seen Better Days", "The Irish Jubilee", "Two Little Girls in Blue", "When Summer Comes Around", "It Don't Seem Like the Same Old Smile", "My Sweetheart's the Man in the Moon", "Going for a Pardon", and "The Streets of Cairo".

On Broadway, Thornton's performed in Eddie Dowling's Sidewalks of New York and Oscar Hammerstein's Sweet Adeline. His last public appearance was in 1934 at the Forrest Theater in New York City.

Private life

Little is known about his early life. According to the New York Times, he was born in Dublin, Ireland. According to the 1900 US census and his birth certificate, he was born of Irish parents, John Thornton and Catherine Molloy, in Liverpool, England.

Editorial summary

“James Thornton (songwriter)” enters the record as american songwriter and vaudeville performer (1861-1938). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what James, Thornton and songwriter can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1861, 1938, 1898, 1934—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1861-12-05, 1861-12-04—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. Its strongest next move is a source search built around James, Thornton and songwriter.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“James Thornton (songwriter)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, James, Thornton and songwriter provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6144251. VIAF identifies the subject as 1802716. The Library of Congress control number is n99042775. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1861, 1938, 1898 and 1934.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “James Thornton (songwriter)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow James Thornton (songwriter) primary sources, James Thornton (songwriter) archive and James research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “James Thornton (songwriter)”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “James Thornton (songwriter)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.