In 1845, the Ellesmere and Chester Canal Company took over the Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal, and appointed a committee to consider how best to convert them to railways, and what extensions might be necessary to provide a comprehensive transport network. The following year, the company became the Shropshire Union Railways and Canal Company, by an Act of Parliament which authorised the new company to take over the Shrewsbury Canal and to buy the Montgomery Canal and the Shropshire Canal. In 1847, the Shropshire Union Company agreed to the terms of a lease from the London and North Western Railway Company (LNWR), and so lost its independence after little more than a year, but continued to manage the canals under its control.