Plans to expand Waterloo Station, 1846

The L&SWR did not intend Waterloo Bridge to be their London terminus. Already active in the commuter market the Company wished to cross the Thames and get their passengers directly into the City. Acquiring another Parliamentary Act on 26th August 1846, and even buying some land, the Directors of the Company now had the powers and the property to extend the line to a terminus just south-west of London Bridge right on the edge of “the City” and build a terminus they intended to share with the North Kent Railway. Long-term plans not withstanding work on the new extension towards Waterloo Bridge was begun in the summer of 1846, with Locke as the engineer and Tite as the architect, although his talents were not to be put to extensive use.

On 2nd July 1847 the L&SWR acquired a Supplementary Act of Parliament for more land at the Waterloo Bridge site and more approaches to service the station. The sum of L&SWR powers conferred by Parliament allowed theoretical expansion towards a more central metropolitan location near the City which had an intermediate station at Vauxhall and allowed for a short branch to Hungerford Bridge. The L&SWR exertions with Parliament thereby empowered them to deliver both goals for their pedestrian traffic – closer to the City and closer to the West End.

 Originally projected to cost the far from mean sum of £800,000 Charles Lee, who was the valuer and surveyor for the L&SWR, later admitted the extension cost nearer £1,250,000 which was almost a quarter of the Company’s market capitalisation in 1849. The expansion programme was aided by the generous financial powers of the era which, in the original London and Southampton Act of 1834, authorised the Company to raise £1 million in 20,000 shares of £50, and allowed the Company to borrow in excess of 1/3 of its authorised share capital. Additionally the L&SWR was statutorily allowed to borrow up to half the authorised share capital through mortgaging the remainder of the instalments on the shares when half of the calls had been made. A further flotation in 1837 had empowered further capital stock of £400,000 with a loan of £139,000.

from "The History of Waterloo Station'

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