He is most famous for the film serials he co-directed with William Witney for Republic Pictures such as Zorro's Fighting Legion and Drums of Fu Manchu.
John English was born in Cumberland in the United Kingdom but moved to Canada at an early age.
Together they are regarded as having produced the best examples of the serial medium: most notable of all were the directing talents of William Witney and John English.
They adopted a no-nonsense approach that treated the serial material with respect and rarely gave any clues that we shouldn't consider the stories seriously.
In the 1952-1953 television season, English directed several episodes of Alan Hale, Jr.'s Biff Baker, U.S.A. espionage series on CBS.