Source: Michael Doyle Their Name Liveth For Evermore: The Great War Roll of Honour for Leicestershire and Rutland.
He was the son of Thomas Alfred Chamberlain Burton a hosiery warehouseman, born 1868 in Newtown Linford, Leics., and his wife Ruth a grocery shop keeper, born 1870 in Leicester. John Henry was born in 1896 in Leicester, he had one sibling, a sister Annie Marguerite Agnes, born 1894 in Leicester, in March 1901 the family home was at 31, Olphin Street, Leicester. In April 1911 John was a scholar and was residing in the family home at 14, Glenfield Avenue, Leicester, together with his father, now a hosiery manager and his sister, Annie. He was an old Wyggestonian. On the 31st January 1920 the Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys in Leicester published a Roll of Honour, John is recorded as having been a pupil at the school between the years 1907 and 1911.