Early years: 1940–1956
John Winston Lennon was born on 9 October 1940 at Liverpool Maternity Hospital, the only child of Alfred and Julia Lennon (née Stanley). Alfred was a merchant seaman of Irish descent who was away at the time of his son's birth, and Lennon had Welsh ancestry on his mother's side. His parents named him John Winston Lennon after his paternal grandfather, John "Jack" Lennon, and Prime Minister Winston Churchill. His father was often away from home but sent regular pay cheques to 9 Newcastle Road, Liverpool, where Lennon lived with his mother; the cheques stopped when he went absent without leave in February 1944. When he eventually came home six months later, he offered to look after the family, but Julia, by then pregnant with another man's child, rejected the idea. After her sister Mimi complained to Liverpool's Social Services twice, Julia gave her custody of Lennon.
In July 1946, Lennon's father visited her and took his son to Blackpool, secretly intending to emigrate to New Zealand with him. Julia followed them – with her partner at the time, Bobby Dykins – and after a heated argument, his father forced the five-year-old to choose between them. In one account of this incident, Lennon twice chose his father, but as his mother walked away, he began to cry and followed her. According to author Mark Lewisohn, however, Lennon's parents agreed that Julia should take him and give him a home. Billy Hall, who witnessed the incident, has said that the dramatic portrayal of a young Lennon being forced to make a decision between his parents is inaccurate. He had no further contact with Alfred for close to 20 years.
Throughout the rest of his childhood and adolescence, Lennon lived at Mendips, 251 Menlove Avenue, Woolton, with Mimi and her husband George Toogood Smith, who had no children of their own. His aunt purchased volumes of short stories for him, and his uncle, a dairyman at his family's farm, bought him a mouth organ and engaged him in solving crossword puzzles. Julia visited Mendips on a regular basis, and Lennon often visited her at 1 Blomfield Road, Liverpool, where she played him Elvis Presley records, taught him the banjo, and showed him how to play "Ain't That a Shame" by Fats Domino. In September 1980, Lennon commented about his family and his rebellious nature:
A part of me would like to be accepted by all facets of society and not be this loudmouthed lunatic poet/musician. But I cannot be what I am not [...] I was the one who all the other boys' parents – including Paul's father – would say, "Keep away from him" [...] The parents instinctively recognised I was a troublemaker, meaning I did not conform and I would influence their children, which I did. I did my best to disrupt every friend's home [...] Partly out of envy that I didn't have this so-called home [...] but I did [...] There were five women that were my family. Five strong, intelligent, beautiful women, five sisters. One happened to be my mother. [She] just couldn't deal with life. She was the youngest and she had a husband who ran away to sea and the war was on and she couldn't cope with me, and I ended up living with her elder sister. Now those women were fantastic [...] And that was my first feminist education [...] I would infiltrate the other boys' minds. I could say, "Parents are not gods because I don't live with mine and, therefore, I know."
He regularly visited his cousin Stanley Parkes, who lived in Fleetwood and took him on trips to local cinemas. During the school holidays Parkes often visited Lennon with Leila Harvey, another cousin, and the three often travelled to Blackpool two or three times a week to watch shows. They would visit the Blackpool Tower Circus and see artists such as Dickie Valentine, Arthur Askey, Max Bygraves and Joe Loss, with Parkes recalling that Lennon particularly liked George Formby. After Parkes's family moved to Scotland, the three cousins often spent their school holidays together there. Parkes recalled, "John, cousin Leila and I were very close. From Edinburgh we would drive up to the family croft at Durness, which was from about the time Lennon was nine years old until he was about 16." His uncle George died of a liver haemorrhage on 5 June 1955, aged 52.
Lennon was raised as an Anglican and attended Dovedale Primary School. He passed the eleven-plus examination, later calling it "the only exam I ever passed, because I was terrified". He attended Quarry Bank High School in Liverpool from September 1952 to 1957, and was described by Harvey at the time as a "happy-go-lucky, good-humoured, easy going, lively lad". However, he was also known to frequently engage in fights, bully and disrupt classes. Despite this, he quickly built a reputation as the class clown and often drew comical cartoons that appeared in his self-made school magazine, the Daily Howl. According to school teacher Tom Barry, Lennon was historically viewed by his former school as a bully and nuisance, the administration hid traces of him during the Beatles rise to fame because they did not consider him a good role model.
In 1956, Julia bought Lennon his first guitar. The instrument was an inexpensive Gallotone Champion acoustic for which she lent her son five pounds and ten shillings on the condition that the guitar be delivered to her own house and not Mimi's, knowing well that her sister was not supportive of her son's musical aspirations. Mimi was sceptical of his claim that he would be famous one day, and she hoped that he would grow bored with music, often telling him, "The guitar's all very well, John, but you'll never make a living out of it."
Lennon and Pete Shotton were initially placed in Quarry Bank's top "A" stream but were soon moved down to the "C" stream. Former classmate Rod Davis later recalled Lennon as at least as intelligent as his peers, but unwilling to conform to the school system. Lennon's severe shortsightedness was another contributing factor: he disliked wearing glasses and, from the back of the classroom, often could not make out what was written on the blackboard. Teachers at Quarry Bank High School described him thus: "He has too many wrong ambitions and his energy is often misplaced", and "His work always lacks effort. He is content to 'drift' instead of using his abilities." Lennon's misbehaviour created a rift in his relationship with his aunt.
Away from compulsory schoolwork, Lennon read widely and spent considerable time writing and drawing. An English exercise book containing poetry and Lennon's illustrations was kept by his teacher Lancelot Burrows to show later pupils as an example of good work. His spelling remained poor, however, and Lewisohn has suggested that he may have had dyslexia, while noting that he displayed no other obvious symptoms of the condition.
Lennon failed his O-level examinations and was accepted into the Liverpool College of Art after his aunt and headmaster intervened.
On 15 July 1958, at the age of 44, Julia Lennon was struck and killed by a car while she was walking home after visiting the Smiths' house. His mother's death traumatised the teenage Lennon, who, for the next two years, drank heavily and frequently got into fights, consumed by a "blind rage". Julia's memory would later serve as a major creative inspiration for Lennon, inspiring songs such as the 1968 Beatles song "Julia".
At the college he began to wear Teddy Boy clothes and was threatened with expulsion for his behaviour. According to Cynthia Powell, Lennon's fellow student and subsequently his wife, he was "thrown out of the college before his final year".
