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Cynthia Lennon (née Powell) (born 10 September 1939 in Blackpool, Lancashire, England) was the first wife of musician John Lennon. She grew up in the middle-class section of Hoylake, on the Wirral UK, and gained a place at the Liverpool College of Art. She met Lennon in a lettering class and started a relationship with him, marrying him in 1962, after the two discovered her pregnancy. They had one son, Julian Lennon, who also became a musician. She divorced Lennon in 1968, after he left her for the artist Yoko Ono. She was married three more times, and now lives in Majorca, Spain.

Cynthia was the last of three children born to Charles Powell and his wife Lillian neé Roby, who had two older sons named Anthony (Tony) and Charles. Charles Powell worked for the GEC company, and sold electrical goods to shops in Liverpool.In 1939, Mrs Powell (who was carrying Cynthia) was sent to Blackpool after World War II had been declared, and lived in a small room in a bed-and-breakfast on the Blackpool seafront before giving birth. When Lillian came to term, she was in labour for a whole day and a night until a midwife arrived, who saw how bad the situation was. The nurse locked the door, swore Lillian to secrecy, and "dragged" the infant (Cynthia) into the world. After her birth, the Powell family moved to a two-bedroomed semi-detached house in Hoylake; across the river Mersey from Liverpool. Her eldest brother, Charles, was a talented pianist, but he left home at 16 to work for the GEC in Birmingham. Cynthia with her brother Charles and her father in 1945. At age 12, she was accepted at the Junior Art School, which was only a short distance away from the Liverpool Art College, and it was there that she met Phyllis McKenzie, who became her lifetime friend. When she was 17, her father died after a long battle with lung cancer. Before he died, he told his daughter that she would have to get a job to support her mother, and would not be able to go to art school in Liverpool. However, her mother wanted to see her receive a better education, she squeezed four single beds into the master bedroom and rented it out to four apprentice electricians.

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