Portal:Hampshire/Selected biography/18

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Wilbert Vere Awdry, OBE, (June 15, 1911 – March 21, 1997), better known as the Reverend W. Awdry, was a clergyman, railway enthusiast and children's author.

He is best known as the author of The Railway Series of books in which the character Thomas the Tank Engine originated.

Awdry was born in Romsey, Hampshire in 1911. The son of a clergyman, he was educated at Dauntseys School, West Lavington, Wiltshire; St Peter's Hall, Oxford (BA, 1932), and Wycliffe Hall, Oxford. He was ordained into the Anglican priesthood in 1936. In 1938 he married Margaret Wale, and two years later took a curacy in King's Norton, Birmingham where he lived until 1946. He subsequently moved to Cambridgeshire, serving as Rector of Elsworth with Knapwell, 1946-53, and Vicar of Emneth, 1953-65, before retiring to Stroud.

The characters that would make Awdry famous, and the first stories featuring them, were invented in 1942 to amuse his son Christopher during a bout of measles. After he wrote 'Three Railway Engines' Christopher wanted a model of Gordon, however that was beyond the scarce wartime resources available. Instead Awdry made a model of a tank engine from odds and ends and painted it blue. Christopher christened the model engine Thomas. Then Christopher requested stories about Thomas and these duly followed and were published in the famous book Thomas the Tank Engine published in 1946.