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Julia Lennon ( née Stanley; 12 March 1914 – 15 July 1958) was the mother of English musician John Lennon, who was born during her marriage to Alfred Lennon. After complaints to Liverpool's Child protection by her eldest sister Mimi Smith (née Stanley), she surrendered the care of her son to Mimi. She later had one daughter after an affair with a Welsh soldier, but pressure from her family made her place the baby for adoption. Later she had two daughters, Julia and Jackie, with John "Bobby" Dykins. She never divorced her husband, preferring to live as Dykins' common-law wife for the rest of her life.
She was known as being high-spirited, impulsive, and musical, and for having a strong sense of humour. She taught her son John how to play the banjo and the ukulele. She kept in almost daily contact with him, and when he was in his teens he often stayed overnight at her and Dykins' house. On 15 July 1958, she was knocked down and killed by a car driven by an off-duty policeman, close to her sister's house at 251 Menlove Avenue. John was traumatised by her death and wrote several songs about her, including "Julia," "Mother," and "My Mummy's Dead." Biographer Ian MacDonald wrote that she was, "to a great extent ... her son's muse".
She stood at in heels and often caught the gaze of men in the street. She was always well-dressed and even went to bed with make-up on to "look beautiful when she woke up". A nephew later said that she could "make a joke out of nothing", and could have "walked out of a burning house with a smile and a joke". She frequented Liverpool's dance halls and clubs where she was often asked to dance in jitterbug competitions with Stevedore, soldiers, sailors, and waiters. It was remarked that she could be as humorous as any man and would sing the popular songs of the day at any time of day or night. Her voice sounded similar to Vera Lynn's, whilst Lennon specialised in impersonating Louis Armstrong and Al Jolson. She played the ukulele, the piano accordion, and the banjo (as did Lennon), although neither pursued music professionally. The Beatles Anthology DVD 2003 (Episode 1 – 0:07:06) McCartney and Lennon talking about Julia Lennon. They spent their days together walking around Liverpool and talking of what they would do in the future: opening a shop, a pub, a café, or a club.
On 3 December 1938, 11 years after they first met, she married Alf Lennon after proposing to him. They were married in the Bolton Street Registry office with none of her family present because she had not told them of the wedding. She wrote 'cinema usherette' as her occupation on the marriage certificate, although she had never been one. They spent their honeymoon eating at Reece's restaurant in Clayton Square (which is where their son would later dine after his marriage to Cynthia Lennon), then went to a cinema. She walked into 9 Newcastle Road waving the marriage licence and said to her family, "There!—I've married him." It was an act of defiance against her father, who had threatened to disown her if she ever cohabitation with a lover. On their wedding night, she stayed at her parents' house and Lennon went back to his boarding house. The next day, he went back to sea for three months, on a ship bound for the West Indies.
The Stanley family completely ignored her husband at first, believing him to be of "no use to anyone—certainly not our Julia". Her father demanded that he present something concrete to show that he could financially support his daughter, but Alf signed on as a Merchant Navy steward on a ship bound for the Mediterranean. He returned after a few months at sea and moved into the Stanley home. He auditioned for local theatre managers as an entertainer but had no success. Julia found out that she was pregnant (with John) in January 1940, but as the war had started her husband continued to serve as a merchant seaman during World War II, sending money home regularly. The Beatles Anthology DVD 2003 (Episode 6 – 0:37:32) John Lennon talking about living at 9 Newcastle Road in Liverpool. The payments stopped after Alf deserted in 1943.
John started at his first school in November 1945–Mosspits, on Mosspits Lane, Wavertree–so she found a part-time job at a café near the school. After numerous criticisms from the Stanley family about their (still-married) daughter "living in sin" with John Dykins, and considerable pressure from Smith–who twice contacted Liverpool's Social Services to complain about the infant John sleeping in the same bed as Julia and Dykins—she reluctantly handed the care of John over to Smith and her husband, George Smith. In July 1946, Alf visited the Smith house, Mendips, at 251 Menlove Avenue, and took John to Blackpool for a long holiday, but he was secretly intending to emigrate to New Zealand with him. Julia and Dykins found out and followed them to Blackpool. Alf asked Julia to go with them both to New Zealand, but she refused. After a heated argument, Alf said their five-year-old child had to choose between his mother or him. He chose Alf twice, so Julia walked away, but in the end her son, crying, followed her, although this story has been disputed. According to author Mark Lewisohn, Alf and Julia agreed that she should take John and give him a home as Alf left again. A witness who was there that day, Billy Hall, said the dramatic scene often portrayed with a young John Lennon having to make a decision between his parents never happened. Alf lost contact with the family until Beatlemania, when he and his son met again.
She took John back to her house and enrolled him in a local school, but after a few weeks she handed him back to Smith. Various reasons have been suggested for her decision, such as Dykins' unwillingness to raise the young boy, Julia's inability to cope with the responsibility, or a punishment forced on her by Smith and her father for living with a lover. John blamed himself, saying later, "My mother ... couldn't cope with me." He then lived continuously at Mendips, in the smallest bedroom above the front door, with Mimi determined to give him a "proper upbringing". Julia later bought John his first guitar for £5-10-0 (five pound ten shillings, or £5.50 in decimal money) after he had pestered her incessantly for weeks, but insisted it had to be delivered to her house, not her sister's. As John had difficulty learning chords, she taught him banjo and ukulele chords, which were simpler, The Beatles Anthology DVD 2003 (Episode 1 – 0:14:30) John Lennon talking about the banjo and Julia. and later taught John how to play the piano accordion. Julia's banjo was the first instrument that John learned to play 'sitting there with endless patience until I managed to work out all the chords.' After Julia's untimely death, the instrument was never seen again and its whereabouts remains a mystery.
As Smith refused to have a record player in her house, John learned how to play his favourite songs by going to Julia's house. She played him Elvis Presley records and would dance around her kitchen with him. In 1957, when The Quarrymen played at St. Barnabas Hall, Penny Lane, Julia turned up to watch. After each song she would clap and whistle louder than everyone else and was seen "swaying and dancing" throughout the whole concert. John frequently visited her house during that period, detailing his anxieties and problems, where she gave him encouragement to continue with music over Smith's objections.
Alf took John to his brother Sydney's house in the Liverpool suburb of Maghull a few months before Julia birth. Julia's daughter, Victoria Elizabeth, born in the Elmswood Nursing Home on 19 June 1945, was subsequently given up for adoption to a Norwegian Salvation Army and his wife (Peder and Margaret Pedersen) after intense pressure from the Stanley family. John Lennon was informed by his aunt Harriet Birch of her existence in 1964. John was so overcome by emotion, wanting to find his sister, that he placed an ad in the paper, and hired detectives to look for her. They searched Norway for Victoria, and came up empty handed, and in 1980, John died never having found or met her. Her adoptive name is Ingrid Pedersen.
Paul McCartney later stated that Julia Cohabiting with Dykins while she was still married was a point of social ostracization for John, as it was often used as a "cheap shot" against him. Although Julia never divorced Alf, she was considered to be the common-law wife of Dykins. She wanted John to live with them both, but he was passed between the Stanley sisters and often ran away to Mimi's, where she would open the door to find John standing there, "his face covered in tears". Julia was accused by the family of being frivolous and unreliable— she never enjoyed household chores— and was once seen sweeping the kitchen floor with a pair of knickers on her head. Her cooking methods were also haphazard, as she would mix things "like a mad scientist", and even put tea "or anything else that came to hand" in a stew. A favourite joke would be to wear a pair of spectacles that had no glass in them, and then to scratch her eye through the empty frame. Dykins later managed several bars in Liverpool, which allowed Lennon to stay at home and look after their two daughters (Julia and Jackie) and John, who often visited and stayed overnight, at 1 Blomfield Road, Liverpool. John and McCartney would rehearse in the bathroom of the house where the acoustics "sounded like a recording studio". Dykins used to give John weekly pocket money (one shilling) for doing odd jobs, on top of the five shillings that Smith gave him. In December 1965, Dykins was killed in a car crash at the bottom of Penny Lane, but John was not told about his death for months afterwards, as it was "not Stanley family business".
Julia and Jackie later met their half-sister, Ingrid Pedersen, when they were present at the ceremony to place a Blue plaque on Smith's house to commemorate that John had lived there. Their cousin Stanley Parkes was on the ladder fixing the plaque to the wall and said, "I think I can see Ingrid" walking. Baird and her sister were surprised, as it meant that Parkes had seen Pedersen before, even though Baird and Jackie never had. When all three finally met for the first time, Baird was shocked that Ingrid did not look anything like the Stanley family, as she had "pale blue eyes and fair hair".
Julia was struck and killed by a Standard Vanguard car, driven by an off-duty policeman, Eric Clague, who was a L-plate. Clague was acquitted of all charges and given a short suspension from duty. When Mimi Smith heard the verdict she was so incensed that she shouted "Murderer!" at Clague. Clague tried to send his condolences to the family but didn't as he thought it would make the situation worse. Clague later left the police force and became a postman.
John could not bring himself to look at his mother's body when he was taken to the Sefton General Hospital, and was so distraught that he put his head on Smith's lap throughout the funeral service. He refused to talk to Walley for months afterwards, and Walley felt that John somehow held him responsible. Julia was buried in Allerton Cemetery in Liverpool. Her gravesite was for some time unmarked, but it was later identified as "CE (Church of England) 38-805". The graveyard's location is about 1.19 miles east of 1 Blomfield Road. Baird said that the Stanley family hoped to finally put a headstone on her mother's grave, which she hoped "will be a private affair for the family and not for the public". A headstone was subsequently placed on Lennon's grave (replacing a wooden cross), with the words "Mummy, John, Victoria, Julia, Jackie" inscribed.
When he inducted John Lennon into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist, Paul McCartney described Julia in his speech as a very beautiful woman with long red hair who played the ukulele. He commented that he had to teach John the guitar chords since John would just play the ukulele chords that his mother had taught him on guitar.
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