Phillips Haynes Lord (July 13, 1902 – October 19, 1975) was an American radio program writer, creator, producer and narrator as well as a motion picture actor, best known for the Gang Busters radio program that was broadcast from 1935 to 1957.

Lord was born in the small town of Hartford, Vermont, the son of Albert J. Lord, a Protestant clergyman, and his wife Maude Phillips Lord. He was still an infant when his family moved to Meriden, Connecticut, where his father accepted the pastorship of a local church. As a boy, Lord spent his summers with relatives in Maine, and after completing high school he studied at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, before going to Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. While still in college he established myriad businesses, including a book-selling operation, a shoe repair service, and a taxi cab company.

After graduation, the 22-year-old was hired as the principal at the high school in the small town of Plainville, Connecticut, reportedly the youngest person in the United States to ever hold such a position. He soon grew bored with the job and headed to New York City, where, after a series of jobs in publishing, he began writing scripts for radio.

Lord was still in his twenties and living in New York City when he became a national radio personality. Creating the character "Seth Parker", a clergyman and backwoods philosopher based on his real-life grandfather, Hosea Phillips, Lord wrote stories for radio of rural New England life featuring ordinary folks singing hymns and telling jokes and stories; the show also regularly included a 15-second time of silent prayer, which Lord credited for much of the broadcast's popularity. On his own initiative, he communicated with several stations across the U.S. and sold them scripts he labeled as "Seth Parker's Singing School". An instant hit, Lord was soon contacted by NBC Radio, which contracted to buy scripts for a show to run six days a week that NBC called "Sunday Evening at Seth Parker's".

This was followed by other magazine publications that acquired his scripts, and before long Lord was earning close to $100,000 a year. Not limited in his scope, during this time he wrote other successful radio programs that were designed to conclude after a specific number of episodes were broadcast. Lord's growing popularity resulted in his publishing two books in 1930, titled Seth Parker's Album and Seth Parker's Hymnal, that led to the release of 78rpm gospel records by the "Phillips Lord Trio". Lord and the radio show gained a wide audience and the September 1931 issue of The American Magazine had a feature article on him under the heading: "At 29 He Has Made a Million Friends".

In 1932, Lord published a book titled Seth Parker & His Jonesport Folks: Way Back Home from which he also wrote a stage play titled Seth Parker's Jonesport Folks; an entertainment in two acts. The book was published to coincide with the release of his 1932 motion picture produced by RKO Radio Pictures Inc., which used the shorter title from the book, Way Back Home. Starring opposite Bette Davis, Lord was billed as "Seth Parker, Preacher". Because the radio program was unknown in England, the motion picture was released there with the title Old Greatheart.

In 1933, Lord came up with the idea of buying a sailing ship and broadcasting his show via short-wave radio while sailing to exotic places around the world with a team of celebrities. He purchased the 188-foot, 867-ton four-masted schooner Georgette, which he renamed Seth Parker. Its masts were 125 feet tall. Much promotional material was released in advance of the adventure, including that Mr. Eugene Nohl would be bringing the "Hell Below", a diving shell to be used for undersea exploration. Equipped with the necessary under-water photographic equipment donated by the Pathé film studios, the hype surrounding the voyage promised that Eugene Nohl would photograph "the sunken civilizations of the South Seas Islands, of its deep marine life and formations" and of course "search for sunken treasure and bring back film of shipwrecks".

Sponsored by the Frigidaire appliance company, in December 1933 the schooner Seth Parker set sail for the South Pacific via the Panama Canal. Departing from Portland, Maine, the ship docked at various ports along the eastern seaboard such as Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Jacksonville, Florida, from where they broadcast their short-wave radio program that was retransmitted by NBC. For the listening public, this was a grand adventure by a group of wholesome Americans led by the creator of Rev. Seth Parker. However, the broadcasts revealed a bit of the frivolity behind the scenes of a voyage filled with wine, women and the kind of songs that were not found in any Seth Parker hymnal. In February 1935, disaster struck in the form of a tropical storm off the coast of American Samoa. The ship was severely damaged to the point where the expedition had to be abandoned, which spelled the end of the radio program. The ship's distress signal on February 11 was answered by HMAS Australia, which was carrying the Duke of Gloucester home to the United Kingdom. With little visible damage, Lord declined the offer of support, only to summon back the Australia with another distress call early the next morning. In heavy seas, the Australia took on board nine of the schooner's crew. In response to speculation that the distress signals were a hoax, the Australian government confirmed in May that they were genuine and that no action would be taken against Lord.