In the ‘Our River Thames’ exhibition, open to the public June-August 2025, there is a section about Edward Ernest [Ted] Light, the lock keeper at Sonning, 1912-1946. In this blog we are able to share more about his story.

Edward Ernest Light was born in 1882. Not much is known about his early years until he joined the Thames Conservancy in his early twenties. He started off as an assistant at Teddington Lock, before being promoted to lock-keeper at Culham in 1907.

In 1909, whilst Ted was lock keeper at Culham, the Thames Conservancy formed a sub-committee to ‘enquire into the conditions of employment of, and wages paid to the Lockkeepers, Weirkeepers and Ferrymen throughout the River’. They visited all the locks and lock keepers along the river asking for their observations. Light commented that he found it ‘difficult to live on his pay. Water bad and soils clothes Drinking water obtained ¼ mile distant’. The committee mentioned the issue of the water supply to the engineer department and proposed Light be paid additional wages for his work at the weirs.

Light also raised his wish to have a larger garden and for it to be fenced off to prevent cattle from straying onto it. This demonstrates his fondness for gardening, something made even more evident at his next place of work.

In 1912 Light was successfully interviewed for the position of lock keeper at Sonning Lock. He moved there with his wife, Lily, and son, Ernest Edgar. Ted and Lily had two more sons, Harold (b.1912) and Leonard (b.1914) before Ted was called up in August 1914. He served in the Royal Navy acting as look-out man and helmsman on H.M.S. “Edgar” in the North Sea until December 1914.

(Text reads: The Sub-Committee proceeded to Culham Lock and interview E. Light, a candidate for the post of lock-keeper at Sonning Lock rendered vacant by the retirement of T. Sadler. It was Resolved to recommend Light for the post of Lockkeeper.)

Early in 1915, Ted was discharged from the navy as medically unfit and returned to duty at Sonning Lock on the 14 March 1915. Despite not being fit for active service, he was ‘quite capable of performing his lock-keeper’s duties’ and remained working at Sonning lock until his retirement in 1946.

One of the first things he did on his return was to restore ‘the well-cared for appearance of his garden which had been sadly neglected during his absence’. The Conservancy encouraged lock keepers to maintain their gardens and awarded annual prizes for the best kept garden along different stretches of the river. In 1904 the Sir Reginald Hanson Challenge Cup was also created and awarded annually to the best kept lock garden along the whole of the River Thames.

(Text Reads: In Section No. 3 Sonning has again been awarded the first prize, and although the lock keeper was under a disadvantage in being absent with the Fleet until he was invalided home, in the opinion of the Committee his garden was easily first. Cookham Upper Ferry was again very attractive and the ferryman has made the most of the very limited space at his disposal.)

Sonning Lock frequently won the prize for best garden in its section of the Thames; they even won in 1915 despite Ted only having four months to work on the garden. In 1918 Ted won the Sir Reginald Hanson Challenge cup for the best garden on the River Thames for the first time. The following year, his last child, a daughter named Eveline, was born. She inherited her father’s green thumb and can be seen in family photographs helping in the garden.

In total, Ted Light at Sonning lock won the Sir Reginald Hanson Challenge Cup 13 times between 1918 and 1938. They often faced stiff competition from Teddington lock and locals were known to complain when the trophy went to their London rival.

The garden appears to have reached its peak in the 1930s when it won the challenge cup five times and was described by one judge in 1937 as having ‘one of the most harmonious and well-designed distribution of colours and floral decoration ever seen at this lock’. In 1940 the garden secured royal approval when Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret visited it and described the scene as being “like a bit of a fairyland”.

Ted Light retired in 1946 after serving for 39 years on the river, 34 of them at Sonning. His legacy continued through his family with his daughter maintaining a love of gardening and his son, Edgar, continuing a life on the river as lock keeper at both Blake’s Lock, Reading, and Boveney lock, Windsor.