East Tilbury, historically known as Great Tilbury, is a community, ward and former civil parish in the borough of Thurrock in Essex, England. The community includes two neighbouring settlements, the historic East Tilbury Village near the riverfront and the industrial garden village of Bataville, which was built between the 1930s to 1960s to serve the Bata shoe factory. The ward, which also covers the separate villages of Linford and West Tilbury, had a population of 7,713 in the 2021 census.
There is evidence of Romano-British settlement in what is now East Tilbury as far back as the 1st and 2nd centuries. The first written record of the settlement was likely in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle of 653. During the Anglo-Saxon period, it likely formed a single manorial estate with the separate settlement of West Tilbury, with which it continues to share a name. Coalhouse Fort was constructed in the 1860s. From the 1930s to 1960s, the area experienced significant growth with the opening of the Bata shoe factory and the construction of Bataville to house its thousands of workers.
