Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company had its origins in a business known as Ditchburn and Mare, established in 1835 for shipbuilding and civil engineering at the Orchard Yard, Blackwall, a site which had been used for shipbuilding for many centuries. In 1857 the company was taken over and renamed Thames Ironworks Co. Ltd. The yard occupied sites on bath banks of the River Lea, with 30 acres in West Ham and 5 acres in Blackwall.

By 1872 the firm became a limited liability company and was one of the largest and most productive shipyards on the Thames. With one of the founders having bought a controlling interest in the Thames Ironworks in 1871, the company became known as the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company in 1875. During the 1880’s the focus was on battleships, as well as the beginning of the company’s crane business.

The company seemed to be going from strength to strength, with between 3,000 and 4,000 workmen on a 28 acre site by 1897. However. The following year, disaster struck at the launch of the HMS Albion, which the company was manufacturing, killing 34 people.

In the early 1900s the company went on to build a number of coasters, tugs, riverboats and lighters as well as naval vessels, however by 1909 it was the last major shipbuilding yard left on the Thames. The yard’s failure to win orders for large vessels for the Royal Navy was the subject of comment in the press, and it ultimately closed in 1912.