London Teddington Lock – Tough’s and Dunkirk (#0391)

Marker honoring Tough Brothers’ boatyard that was at Teddington Lock (noted in adjacent picture). The first boatyard (see Boatyard link below) at this location apparently dates back to 1850 with a tenant at the site being the Queens Bargemaster in the later 1800’s and having supplied boats for another shipbuilder in WWI. The Tough family bought the yard in the 1930’s, expanded business, and became the “muster point for the 'Little Ships’, for the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940, which was organised locally by Douglas Tough.” (see the marker in the picture.)

In 2012 there was a commemoration of Dunkirk that involved a flotilla of more than 1000 small boats headed downstream from Teddington lock to honor the Dunkirk evacuation of 338,000 WWII troops using ‘little ships’. See the Commemoration link below for the story.

Sources:
Boatyard: historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1400150
Commemoration: teddingtontown.co.uk/2012/06/01/dunkirk-little-ships-return-to-teddington-lock

(Part of a documentation of 2018 exploration/reflection on Brexit and populist movements in Europe, keyword Europe2018)