River industries gallery 

Barking and Dagenham is surrounded on three sides by water, and the River Industries Gallery looks at how this has influenced the industrial development of the Borough. 

The gallery is divided in to two sections. The first looks at the Barking Fishing Fleet, and how the genius of one Barking family, the Hewetts, transformed the entire process of North Sea fishing. The objects displayed here include a fully-rigged model of the Saucy Jack, a Barking fishing smack. You can also see a transom board from a fishing smack that was tragically lost at sea with its whole crew.

The second half of the gallery tells the story of the entrepreneur Samuel Williams, who established Dagenham Dock. Look out for the wheel from the Duke, a Samuel Williams tug which took part in the evacuation from Dunkirk in 1940.  We also discover how much of the Dagenham Dock land was later bought by the Ford Motor Company, becoming Europe’s largest car plant.

Related web pages:
Barking fishing industry
Dagenham Breach and Dagenham Dock

Click the links to our Information Sheets below for further reading:
Captain John Perry, RN
Barking fishing fleet
Dagenham Breach
Sir Cornelius Vermuyden
Ford Motor Company
Samuel Williams and Sons