the problem he instituted a quality control system to test batches of cement, that is described by the historian Stephen Halliday as both "elaborate" and "draconian". The results were fed back to the manufacturers, who altered their production processes to further improve the product. One of the cement manufacturers commented that the MBW were the first public body to use such testing processes. The progress of Bazalgette's works was reported favourably in the press. Paul Dobraszczyk, the architectural historian, describes the coverage as presenting many of the workers "in a positive, even heroic, light", and in 1861 The Observer described the progress on the sewers as "the most expensive and wonderful work of modern times". Construction costs were so high that in July 1863 an additional £1.2 million was lent to the MBW to cover the cost of the work. Southern drainage system The southern system, across the less populated suburbs of London, was the smaller and easier part of the system to build. Three main sewers ran from Putney, Wandsworth and Norwood until they linked together in Deptford. At that point a pumping station lifted the effluent into the main outflow sewer, which ran to the Crossness Pumping Station on the Erith Marshes, where it was discharged into the Thames at high tide. The newly built station at Crossness was designed by Bazalgette and a consultant engineer, Charles Driver, a proponent of the use of cast iron as a building material. The building was in a Romanesque style and the interior contains architectural cast ironwork which English Heritage describe as important. The power for pumping the large amount of sewage was provided by four massive beam engines, named Victoria, Prince Consort, Albert Edward and Alexandra, which were manufactured by James Watt and Co. The station was opened in April 1865 by the Prince of Wales—the future King Edward VII—who officially started the engines. The ceremony, which was attended by other members of royalty, MPs, the Lord Mayor of London and the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, was followed by a dinner for 500 within the building. The ceremony marked the completion of construction of the Southern Outfall Sewers, and the beginning of their operation. With the successful completion of the southern outflow, one of the board members of the MBW, an MP named Miller, proposed a bonus for Bazalgette. The board agreed and were prepared to pay the engineer