Eleanor Thornton
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Eleanor Velasco Thornton (died 30 December 1915) was an English-born actress and artist's model.
She often posed for sculptor Charles Sykes and was the model for his Spirit of Ecstasy, which was used as the hood ornament on cars manufactured by Rolls-Royce. She was also the secretary and mistress of John Walter Edward Scott-Montagu, who became the second Lord Montagu of Beaulieu in 1905.
Thornton was drowned with hundreds of other passengers in 1915 when the SS Persia, on which she was travelling with Beaulieu through the Mediterranean on the way to India, was torpedoed without warning by the German U-boat U-38, commanded by Max Valentiner.
