An author, actress, and TV producer, Hilary Mary Allcroft was born in West Sussex, England. At 16 she joined a local theater, but was more interested in what went on behind the scenes than acting herself, but she took a stage name, Britt Allcroft, and went by that name for the rest of her life. By 19, she was hired by the BBC, doing on-camera presentations, but also working in production. By the time she hit 30 she had formed her own production company, creating TV and stage shows. As part of that, in August 1979 she was hired to create a documentary about British steam trains, which made her think about a children’s book series from her youth. The author of those books was still alive: Wilbert Awdry was an Anglican vicar and train enthusiast who wrote a children’s book series called “The Railway Series” — the most popular of that series being Thomas the Tank Engine.
Allcroft, “intrigued by the characters, the relationships between them and the nostalgia they invoked,” purchased the TV rights to Thomas for a proposed series. She apparently also got the rights for merchandising the characters as created for the TV production. She co-founded (with her then-husband, TV producer Angus Wright) Britt Allcroft Railway Productions to pursue the project; it took four years to raise the funding — which they finally did by mortgaging their house — and produce the first 26 episodes of the series, Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends, which premiered on ITV on October 9, 1984. “Mr. Conductor” the narrator was Beatle Ringo Starr. The show was a hit, exploded into worldwide syndication, and grew to 584 episodes over 24 seasons. Mr. Conductor was subsequently played by other actors, including George Carlin, Alec Baldwin, and Pierce Brosnan.
For the American market, Allcroft partnered with American producer Rick Siggelkow and created Shining Time Station, a live-action children’s show with the miniature “Mr. Conductor” who introduced Thomas stories. Shining Time won numerous awards, significantly boosting the popularity of the Thomas media franchise in the U.S. with 65 half-hour episodes plus five specials from 1989 to 1995, running on PBS. Allcroft went on to write and direct the film Thomas and the Magic Railroad (2000), and played the character “Lady”. Allcroft was not involved with the CGI-generated follow-on, Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go, created in conjunction with toymaker Mattel. Allcroft died in Los Angeles on December 25. She was 81.