Reverend W. Awdry the English clergyman, railway enthusiast and children’s author. Thomas the Tank Engine was first published in 1946 following The Three Railway Engines which had been published in 1945. There were a further 24 titles in the series. Awdry died on 21 March 1997 in a railway tunnel just outside Montmorillon on the line to Poitiers.
Thomas Cranmer, a leader of the English Reformation and onetime Archbishop of Canterbury, was burned to death on 21 March 1556 in the Place du Vieux Marché in the Cité de l’Ecrit in Montmorillon.
Robert Southey, poet laureate for the thirty years until his death in Montmorillon on 21 March 1843. Southey’s reputation as a poet is somewhat faded now, but he is remembered as the author of The Three Bears, the original Goldilocks story.
One reply on “Died on this day – 21 March”
Good to see The Glass Key Pinkerton Operative back in action!
I never knew Robert Southey was a Montmorillonais … at least in death. He seemed so English, what little I knew of him.