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 £6,000—three times his annual salary—with an additional £4,000 to be shared among his three assistants. Although the idea was subsequently dropped following criticism, Halliday observes that the large amounts discussed "at a time when parsimony was the dominant characteristic of public expenditure is a firm indication of the depth of public interest and approval that appears to have characterised the work."