Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company

[2] The company notably produced iron work for Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Royal Albert Bridge over the Tamar in the 1850s,[2] and the world's first all-iron warship, HMS Warrior, launched in 1860.

Originally located at Deptford, after a fire destroyed their yard the company moved to Orchard Place in 1838, between the East India Dock Basin and Bow Creek in Blackwall.

In this period the company was also awarded several contracts by the Admiralty, including HMS Recruit (a 12-gun brig) which was one of the first iron warships built.

From 1847 the company grew considerably and Mare purchased land in Canning Town on the Essex side of the River Lea, a ferry service being established between the two sites.

It is thought by some that his financial difficulties arose from delays in payment for completed work or, alternatively, that the company had miscalculated the cost of building vessels for the Royal Navy.

The main figure in saving the company was Peter Rolt, Mare's father-in-law and Conservative MP for Greenwich.

[6] Large scale Ordnance Survey maps of the 1860s show the yard occupying a large triangular site in a right-angled bend on the east bank of Bow Creek with the railway to Thames Wharf on the third side, and with a smaller site on the west bank.

[7] To the south-east the yard occupied the north bank of the Thames east of Bow Creek, with two slips giving direct access to the main river.

One of its first Admiralty contracts was for HMS Warrior, launched in 1860, at the time the world's largest warship and the first iron-hulled armoured frigate.

The yard also built the Prussian Navy's first iron-hulled warship, the SMS König Wilhelm in 1868 and the cruiser Afonso de Albuquerque for Portugal in 1884.

Hills was one of the first business directors voluntarily to introduce an eight-hour day for his workers at a time when 10- and 12-hour shifts were more common in industrial work.

[2] Within two years the United Kingdom was at war with the German Empire, with the yard's last major ship taking part in the Battle of Jutland.

[11][failed verification] The premises of the Thames Iron Works and Shipbuilding Company, Greenwich, were subsequently acquired in 1915, by the Royal Flying Corps (created in 1912) for the storage of aeroplanes.