Thos. W. Ward Ltd was a Sheffield, Yorkshire, steel, engineering and cement business, which began as coal and coke merchants. It expanded into recycling metal for Sheffield's steel industry, and then the supply and manufacture of machinery.

In 1894, as part of the scrap metal operation, Ward began to set up substantial shipbreaking yards in different parts of England, and in Scotland and Wales. By 1953, Thos. W. Ward employed 11,500 people.

Ward's business was reorganised at the end of the 1970s, when it moved from being an engineering group with a motley assortment of subsidiaries to being principally dependent on cement. In 1982, it was bought by RTZ.

This business was founded by Thomas William Ward in 1878 with the name Thos. W. Ward. Ward's provided coal and coke, and very soon recycling or scrap metal services. It added dealing in new and used machinery related to the iron, steel, coal, engineering and allied industries, and manufacturing that machinery.^[1]

Ward's Constructional Engineering Department manufactured and erected steel-framed buildings, bridges, collieries, steel works equipment and furnaces. The Rail Department supplied light and heavy rails, sleepers, switches and crossings, and equipped complete sidings. De Lank Quarries produced the granite for Tower Bridge and Blackfriars Bridge, as well as major lighthouses and prestige buildings in London and elsewhere.^[2]

In October 1981, Thos. W. Ward's was split into three:

• Thos. W. Ward (Raw Materials) the former iron and steel division active in processing and merchanting carbon scrap, special steel scrap, non-ferrous scrap metals and steel stockholding.
• Thos. W. Ward (Industrial Supplies)
• Thos. W. Ward (Industrial Dismantling)^[7]

Within a short time, Rio Tinto Zinc (RTZ) began to buy a substantial shareholding and the takeover was completed in early 1982.^[8] RTZ amalgamated the Ward cement operation with that of Tunnel Holdings, and named the combination RTZ Cement, which then had about one quarter of the UK cement market.^[9] The Railway Engineers department of Thos. W Ward was bought by Henry Boot.^[10] RTZ sold Thos. W. Ward (Roadstone) to Ready Mixed Concrete in June 1988.^[11]

Works dismantled before 1926: Abbott's Works, Gateshead; Bowling Ironworks; Kelham Rolling Mills, Sheffield; Derwent Rolling Mills, Workington; Dearne & Dove Works; West Cumberland Whittington Works, Crawshay's Cyfarthfa Works, Bessemer's Works, Bolton; Mars Ironworks, Wolverhampton; Effingham Nut and Bolt Works, Sheffield.^[12] Thos W. Ward. also dismantled the Crystal Palace.^[13]

• HMS Akbar
• HMS Benbow
• HMS Boadicea
• HMS Centurion
• HMS Colossus
• HMS Devastation
• HMS Edinburgh
• HMS Narcissus
• HMS Nile
• HMS Prince Albert
• HMS Sans Pareil
• HMS Warspite
• SS Adriatic
• SS Alaska
• SS Arabic
• SS Britannia
• SS Cleopatra
• Cordoba
• RMS Etruria
• SS Furnessia
• SS Leviathan
• RMS Lucania
• SS Majestic
• SS Munchen
• SS Servia
• SS Syrian
• Terec
• SS Vancouver^[4]
• RMS Saragossa^[14]
• RMS Cherbourg^[14]

At the outbreak of World War I, 1,235 people were on the payroll of Thomas Ward's company and a thousand tons of scrap metal per day was being fed to the country's steel makers. However, with demand so high, and many of the horses Ward had previously used to transport his goods around Sheffield requisitioned by the military, he had an increasingly difficult time to match supply with demand. Lizzie the Elephant was brought in as a solution to the problem.^[17]

After work horses from Thomas Ward's were sent or requisitioned to the front in World War I, Lizzie the Elephant was drafted in from Sedgwick's Menagerie, a travelling circus run by William Sedgwick (1841–1927). The elephant was said to be able to do the work of three of Ward's horses and soon got herself the name "Tommy Ward's Elephant" as she became a familiar sight carrying or hauling goods around Sheffield, controlled by her trainer Richard Sedgwick (1875–1931) (son of the circus ringleader William Sedgwick).^[17] Lizzie was said to have inspired other Sheffield firms to creative means with their wartime transport, and a company in the Wicker area of the city was said to have used camels, also from Sedgwick's Menagerie, in place of their own horses.^[18] Unfortunately, walking around the cobblestoned streets of Sheffield damaged Lizzie's feet and, although she continued to work for Ward's firm for sometime after the end of the First World War, she was eventually returned to the circus.

Lizzie has gone down in Sheffield legend, and there are many stories about her adventures. She also gave her name to the popular Sheffield sayings, "done up like Tommy Ward's elephant" — meaning someone carrying too much weight — and the self-explanatory "like trying to shift Tommy Ward's elephant". A Sheffield Community Transport Optare Solo bus was named "Lizzie Ward" after her.