John Wyndham
English science fiction author (1903–1969)
John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris (; 10 July 1903 – 11 March 1969) was an English science fiction writer best known for his works published under the pen name John Wyndham, although he also used other combinations of his names, such as John Beynon and Lucas Parkes. Some of his works were set in post-apocalyptic landscapes. His best known works include The Day of the Triffids (1951), filmed in 1962, and The Midwich Cuckoos (1957), which was filmed in 1960 as Village of the Damned, in 1995 under the same title, and again in 2022 in Sky Max under its original title.
Biography
Early life
Wyndham was born in the village of Dorridge near Knowle, Warwickshire, England, the son of Gertrude Parkes, the daughter of the Birmingham ironmaster John Israel Parkes, and her second husband (after widowhood), George Beynon Harris, a barrister.
From 1909 to 1911 the Harris family lived at 239 Hagley Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham, but when he was 8 years old his parents separated. His father then attempted to sue the Parkes family for "the custody, control and society" of his wife and two sons (including Wyndham's younger brother, the writer Vivian Beynon Harris), in an unusual and high-profile 1913 court case, which he lost. The case, which re-exposed previous allegations of sexual impropriety, pre-dating his marriage, left Wyndham's father a broken man. Gertrude moved with the children to a smaller house in Edgbaston and the brothers became estranged from their father. Wyndham subsequently attended a private school in Edgbaston run by a Miss Mabel Woodward, and from 1914 to 1915 was at Edgbaston High School for Boys (he later said that while there he was bullied), and Blundell's School in Tiverton, Devon, during the First World War. His longest and final stay was at Bedales School, near Petersfield in Hampshire (1918–1921), which he left at the age of 18.
The public source identifies “John Wyndham” as english science fiction author (1903–1969). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around John, Wyndham and English.
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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 Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q313673. VIAF identifies the subject as 21514326. The Library of Congress control number is n50024699. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1903, 1969, 1951 and 1962.
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This entry incorporates text from “John Wyndham” 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.