About Wilbert Awdry
Wilbert Vere Awdry, often credited as Rev. W. Awdry, was an English Anglican priest, railway enthusiast, and children's author. He was the creator of Thomas the Tank Engine and several other characters who appeared in his Railway Series. All three of Awdry's older half-siblings from his father's first two marriages died young, the youngest being killed in World War I. The characters that would make Awdry known, and the first stories featuring them, were invented in 1942 to amuse his son Christopher during a bout of measles. That shifted the Railway Series from just telling fictional stories in the world Awdry created to paralleling the real world and using events that happened in real life.(Matthew,2022). The first book, The Three Railway Engines, was published in 1945 by Edmund Ward in Leicester.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.