by omnibuses and cabs coming from their distant stations, to bring the provincial travellers to and from the heart of the city. I point next to the vast increase of what I may term the migratory population, the population of the city who now oscillate between the country and the city, who leave the City of London every afternoon and return every morning. Many of the proposed schemes were rejected, but the Commission did recommend that a railway be constructed linking the termini with the docks and the General Post Office at St. Martin's Le Grand. A private bill for the Metropolitan Railway between Praed Street in Paddington and Farringdon received assent on 7 August 1854. Although not a director or significant shareholder of the new company, Pearson continued to promote the project over the next few years and use his influence to help the company raise the £1 million of capital needed for the construction of the line. He issued a pamphlet, A twenty minutes letter to the citizens of London, in favour of the Metropolitan Railway and City Station, encouraging investment and he even persuaded the City of London to invest on the basis that the railway would alleviate the City's congestion problems. Once the railway was in operation, the City sold its shares at a profit. By 1860, the funds had been collected and the final route decided. Work on the railway started; taking less than three years to excavate through some of the worst slums of Victorian London and under some of the busiest streets. Pearson died of dropsy on 14 September 1862 at his home at West Hill, Wandsworth, and did not live to see the opening of the Metropolitan Railway on 10 January 1863. Pearson had refused the offer of a reward from the grateful railway company, but, shortly after the railway's opening, his widow was granted an annuity of £250 per year. He was buried at West Norwood Cemetery on 23 September 1862. Legacy Transport writer Christian Wolmar considers Pearson to have "by far the best claim" to be the first to propose the idea of an underground railway to deal with London's congestion problem. Michael Robbins considers that "without Pearson's constant advocacy–his gadfly conduct, which he managed to combine with holding high office in the City of London–the Metropolitan Railway, the first of its kind in the world, and the nucleus of