The Godmother
In December 2021, youngsters from the StageScreen film and drama school, premiered 'The Godmother'. This play, written by Elaine Pritchard, was based on Burton woman Lily Thomas. When the First World War broke out, Lily was a widow with a young daughter living in Stapenhill. She resolved to send food parcels to five Burton men who had been taken prisoner by the Germans, after hearing from their families that they were asking for dog biscuits to be sent to them, to fill them up. By the end of the war she had sent some 25,750 parcels of food, clothes and medicines out to more than 500 local men.
There were two performances of the play, featuring music hall songs of the time, at The Trinity on George Street, a former methodist church where Lily had attended a service of thanksgiving after some of her 'godsons', as she called the Burton men she helped, had safely returned home.
Elaine is currently giving talks about Lily to groups, clubs and organisations across the Midlands in return for a speaker's fee that she donates to YMCA Burton and SARAC. To enquire about a talk, email her at valerawlingsprojectcic@gmail.com
Who was Lily Thomas?
Lily was born Heny Lily Friedel Harris, in St Peter Port, Guernsey, in March 1875.
Her father, Lazarus Harris, probably not his birth name, was born around 1842 and after leaving what was then Russian Poland, to escape the persecution of Jewish people, he settled in Guernsey and became a naturalised British citizen working as a jeweller and a pawnbroker.
In September 1869, he married Guernsey-born Marguerite Guilbert and they had three daughters: Sarah, Lily and finally Mina. When Mina was still a baby, Margeurite died on January 6th, 1877.
About nine months later, on October 16th, Lazarus remarried to Emma Jane Guille. They went on to have seven children: Samuel, Hashil, Walter, Clara, Heshelina, Ethel and Reuben.
On December 21, 1891, Lazarus died.
Ten years later, in 1901, Lily was 26 and working as a schoolteacher.
In 1906, she married Edward Thomas, an export brewery manager working for the Burton upon Trent firm of Salt & Co., and the couple relocated to Burton.
Their first child, a boy, died at or soon after birth later that year. In 1910 they had a daughter, named Marguerite after Lily's mother.
Sadly, Edward died on Christmas Eve 1911.
When the First World War broke out, Lily and Marguerite were living at 6 Rosliston Road, Stapenhill, a suburb of Burton upon Trent. Lily never remarried. Marguerite married Thomas Wileman Spencer in 1932 but they had no children.
Lily spent her final years living with her daughter and son-in-law on Bretby Lane, Bretby, on the border of Staffordshire and Derbyshire just a couple of miles out of Burton town centre.
Lily died aged 66 in March 1941 and is buried at Burton's Stapenhill cemetery.
