Tough Assignment - Mrs Annie Tough

Mrs Tough, founder of the Eton Wick Chapel, was born Frances Annie Moore at Rotherhithe in Kent in 1853. So much of her life was bound up with Methodism and the Eton Wick chapel, and the story of this has been retold in the earlier chapters of this book, that a summary of the main events and activities must now suffice.

In 1863, aged 10, she joined the Rotherhithe Primitive Methodist Church Sunday School. At the age of 13 she was truly converted and began to learn to play the organ for the church. At the age of 17 she became a Sunday School teacher. At the age of 20 she became a member of the church and about the same time a class leader.

In 1877 she married Charles Tough and began her married life at Eton Wick. She joined the Primitive Methodist Church at Windsor and started a Sunday School at Eton Wick.

About 1882, or soon after, she began seriously to try and get a chapel in Eton Wick, and when Windsor could not help, she joined the Primitive Methodist Church at Maidenhead and started a Womens Meeting in Eton Wick.

In 1886 the chapel was built, and she became one of its first trustees. She may also have been the first society steward. About 1890 she became the assistant super-intendent of the Sunday School. In 1901 she began her work as a local preacher. Some-time before 1904 she became President of the Windsor Branch of the Women's Total Abstinence Union. In 1907 she was elected for the first time as circuit delegate to the District Meeting, and in 1916 as a delegate to the Presidential Conference.

In 1930 Frances Annie Tough died suddenly at her home at Bryanston, Moores Lane, on the 9th June. As the Rev. J Tolfree Parr said at her funeral she was remarkable woman; she was tough by name as well as by nature and has left an enduring gift to the village she came to love.

Mrs Tough

59 years as Sunday School Teacher                                                                  1873 - 1930

57 years as Church Member                                                                              1866 - 1917

51 years as Organist                                                                                          1880 - 1930

50 years as Leader of the Women's Meeting                                                     1886 - 1930

43 years as Trustee                                                                                            1886 - 1930

43 years as Society Steward                                                                              1886 - 1930

40 years as Superintendent and Assistant Superintendent of Sunday School  1890 - 1930 

The Eton Wick History Group is most grateful for the kind permission given by the Eton Wick Methodist Chapel to republish this history, Tough Assignment on this website.