Millwall Iron Works

Millwall Iron Works was the iron shipbuilding and engineering complex on the Isle of Dogs in London, which grew from small shipyards into one of the capital's main iron shipbuilders in the nineteenth century. William Fairbairn laid out an ironworks there in 1836 and built more than one hundred small ships, mostly under 2,000 tons, for the Admiralty, the Tsar of Russia and the King of Denmark. John Scott Russell took over the works in 1848 and built the SS Great Eastern at the Napier Yard, which was launched sideways in 1858. In 1861 a new company, the Millwall Iron Works, Ship Building and Graving Docks Company, took the site and became known for the iron cladding of Royal Navy ships, employing between 4,000 and 5,000 men. It failed after the Panic of 1866, and the ironclad Northumberland was launched while its builders went bankrupt. The site is now the residential Burrells Wharf.