Messrs. Maudslay, like Messrs. Penn and other eminent engineers, had been in the habit of having the ships for which they contracted built by other firms, while they themselves supplied the engines. They decided to do their own shipbuilding, and accordingly opened a yard at East Greenwich. The first vessel launched there was the _Lady Derby_, of 530 tons gross, built for the General Iron Screw-Collier Company. Those were the days when Thames shipbuilding was at its zenith. While trade was good, freights high, and shipowning was profitable, shipowners did not mind paying high prices for their vessels; but as the north-east coast, the Mersey, and the east and west coasts of Scotland developed their iron shipbuilding facilities, and by reason of their proximity to the coal and iron fields were able to obtain these commodities at lower prices than the Thames shipbuilders could secure them, they were able to underbid the Thames shipbuilders and secure the industry, with the result that there is now but one shipbuilding establishment of importance in the Thames equipped to turn out a large warship or liner. Its competitors and neighbours of half a century ago vanished one after another. Some have passed out of existence, others have become merely repairing yards, and two or three have gone elsewhere and prospered. The one survivor is the Thames Iron Works and Shipbuilding Company, which, on the site made historic by Mr. Penn’s enterprise, proudly endeavours to hold its own and maintain the traditions of the river.