John Harbord, 8th Baron Suffield

John Harbord was the younger of the two sons of Charles Harbord, 6th Baron Suffield (and also seventh baronet Harbord), and his wife Evelyn Louisa Wilson-Patten. His mother was the daughter of Captain Eustace John Wilson-Patten and Emily Constantia Thynne (1840–1926) (a granddaughter of Thomas Thynne, 2nd Marquess of Bath, who later married again and became Marchioness of Headfort). John Harbord's paternal grandparents were Charles Harbord, 5th Baron Suffield (1830–1914) and Cecilia Annetta Baring, Lady Suffield (1834–1911), a daughter of Henry Baring (1776–1848), of the Barings Bank family. She was a Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Victoria.

He had one elder brother, Victor Alexander Charles, and two sisters, Doris Cecilia and Lettice Evelyn.

John Harbord was educated at Gresham's School, Holt.

Harbord's father, the sixth Lord Suffield and seventh baronet, died in 1924, and his elder brother Victor (1897–1943) inherited the titles. In 1943, Victor (who had married the Hon. Olwen Gwynne Phillips in 1925 but had been divorced from her in 1937) died childless, and his younger brother John inherited the titles. However, John failed to marry, and in 1945 he also died without issue and was succeeded by a distant and elderly cousin, Geoffrey Harbord, 9th Baron Suffield (1861–1946), son of the Hon. William Harbord, third son of Edward Harbord, third Baron Suffield (1781–1835). However, the ninth baron died after holding the titles for only a year, and they next passed to another elderly cousin, Admiral Richard Morden Harbord-Hamond, 10th Baron Suffield (1865–1951), only son of the Rev. and Hon. John Harbord (1832–1900), fourth son of the third Baron. His son Anthony Philip Harbord-Hamond (1922–2011) became the 11th Lord Suffield and 12th baronet in 1951.