Background
Lillian Beynon was born on 26 May 1884 in Streetsville, Ontario.
Lillian Beynon was born on 26 May 1884 in Streetsville, Ontario.
She studied at Portage Collegiate, then taught for a period at Chain Lakes School. She then studied at Wesley College and graduated from the University of Manitoba in 1905.
At the age of five she suffered an accident that left her lame for life. In 1889 the Beynon family moved to Hartney, Manitoba. Lillian Beynon was a schoolteacher in Morden, then in 1906 joined the Manitoba Free Press.
She was appointed an assistant editor of the Weekly Free Press.
As editor of the Women"s page she wrote the column Home Loving Hearts under the pen name of "Lillian Laurie". In the column she told of stories of women who had been abused or abandoned, and lobbied for new laws to protect the rights of women.
She also pushed for prohibition of liquor, which she saw as a major cause of problems. From 1907-1908 she was secretary of the Winnipeg branch of the Canadian Women's Press Club.
That year she organized Women's Institutes in association with the University of Saskatchewan.
Lillian married A. Vernon Thomas in 1911, and changed her name to Lillian Thomas. Lynn and Winona Flett also joined, as did men such as George Fisher Chipman and F. J. Dixon. Lillian Beynon Thomas was the first president, but Doctor Mary East. Crawford soon took over the leadership.
In late June 1917 Francis Marion Beynon left Winnipeg and moved to New York City.
In 1917 A. Vernon Thomas was fired as legislative reporter of the Free Press for publicly opposing conscription, and the Thomas"s also moved to New New York They spent 1918-1923 in New New York
After they returned to Canada, Lillian pursued a career as a writer She wrote a number of successful plays, including Among the Maples, Jim Barber’s Spite Fence and As the Twig Is Bent.
She published her first novel, New Secret, in 1946.
Lillian Beynon Thomas died in Winnipeg on 2 September 1961.
In 1910 she became a member of the Executive of the Women's University Club. Members of the Winnipeg branch of the Canadian Women"s Press Club formed the nucleus of the Manitoba Political Equality League, which campaigned for women"s suffrage, including Francis Marion Beynon, Lillian Beynon Thomas, Nellie McClung and Ella Cora Hind.