From the right: Colin Tidbury, 4th Hugh Ward, 5th John Marriott, 8th Alan Ward.
From the left: 2nd is Sidney Hawkes
In 1933 a factory was opened on the Essex Marshes at East Tilbury by the Bata Shoe Company. This Company was based in Czechoslovakia and had been founded by Tomas Bata, who was killed in 1932 in a plane crash. Over the next 70 years Bata was an important part of the local economy and an international community grew up on the Bata Estate, houses built for the workers by the Company. Note:
