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EDWARD CHARLES GEORGE JONES 1913-1988

Times in the company were not always good and he recalled having to go to the sands in the River Thames estuary to shovel sand into the barges 6 feet above for selling to builders. During his early days the company built wooden barges as he remembered sawing the large planks of wood by hand to make them and then using an adze to shape the wood and caulking the joints to seal them.

In 1937 he married Edith Mary Woods and they had two daughters, Ann Mary born 4th March 1940 and Pamela Edith born 14th September 1944. After their marriage they brought their house at 300 Windmill Road, Ealing where I spent most of my childhood before moving to 164 Gunnersbury Lane, Acton in 1957. He desperately wanted a son to carry on the family business but this never happened.

During World War II my father joined the Merchant Navy and was working from Surrey Commercial Docks on the tugs. My fathers tug was named Malta II and much of my early information for that time comes from the cabin boy that helped him on those trips. The cargo ships would bring timber and coal into the docks; this would be unloaded from the ships into the barges. My father would take the coal to Battersea Power Station or further down stream, and the barges of timber up the River Thames sometimes as far as Reading and Folly Bridge in Oxford. This was used to build Mosquito Aircraft. The tugs could have as many as 32 barges to pull. The docks were very vulnerable during the war so it was very important to remove supplies as quickly as possible and great skill was needed to manouevre the barges and tugs as quickly as possible.

After the war Edward Charles returned to the family business. He was the hands-on member of the family, actually building the boats. And I have many memories of him working 24 or 36 hours at a stretch to get the craft finished by completion date or to catch the tide so they could launch the craft.

Over the years he acquired an enormous amount of knowledge and experience and there was nothing he couldn’t do either in the business or in his own home. He was a perfectionist and all his jobs whether at home or work had to be perfect and this gave E.C.Jones & Son the reputation of the high standard of work they were known to have. He was managing director of the company until his retirement.

Edward Charles retired from the company in 1977 and sold his share of the company to Edward G. Harris of E. G. Harries & Son but continued to work for another two years finally finishing work in 1979.

My father was a very kind and generous man and died on 8th December 1988. After his death my mother moved near to her daughter Ann and her family in Iver. She died on 7th October 1993.

Published October 2006