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Joan Lingard

British writer (1932–2022)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 17, 2026
Entity authorityQ362577 ↗
Source-derived summary

Joan Amelia Lingard MBE (8 April 1932 – 12 July 2022) was a Northern Irish writer. She was born in Edinburgh but brought up in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She is known for the young adult-aimed Kevin and Sadie series, which sold over one million copies and has been translated into several languages. Across the Barricades, part of the Kevin and Sadie series, is one of the best known novels about the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Career

Lingard wrote novels for both adults and children. Her first work, Liam's Daughter, was an adult-orientated novel published in 1963. Her first children's novel was The Twelfth Day of July (the first of the five Kevin and Sadie books) in 1970.

She received the Buxtehuder Bulle award in 1986 for Across the Barricades. Tug of War has also received great success: shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal 1989, the Federation of Children's Book Group Award 1989, runner-up in the Lancashire Children's Book Club of the year 1990 and shortlisted for the Sheffield Book Award. In 1998, her book Tom and the Tree House won the Scottish Arts Council Children's Book Award.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Joan Lingard” as british writer (1932–2022). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Joan, Lingard and British.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1932, 2022, 1963, 1970—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1932-01-15, 1932, 1932-04-08—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Joan, Lingard and British providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Joan Lingard”, the useful work is to connect “british writer (1932–2022)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q362577. VIAF identifies the subject as 3076308. The Library of Congress control number is n79022043. 5 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 2 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1932, 2022, 1963 and 1970.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Joan Lingard”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Joan Lingard primary sources, Joan Lingard archive and Joan 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 “Joan Lingard”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Joan Lingard” 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.