Peto, Betts and Crampton
1862 Thomas Russell Crampton joined Messrs Peto and Betts in a fixed price contract to build the metropolitan extension of the London, Chatham and Dover Railway[1]. This line was to be between London Bridge and Victoria. The contract was based on it being paid for entirely in the company's shares and debentures. To raise the funding for the construction they became involved in complicated finance-raising schemes, and with their overseas operations hindered by war, they overstretched themselves. Consequently, Peto and Betts were probably the most prominent casualties of the collapse of the bank Overend, Gurney and Co (1866) and the ensuing banking crisis when railway stocks were particularly badly affected and the London, Chatham and Dover Railway became insolvent and therefore the shares they had been paid in became worthless.
1864-66 Peto and Betts and Crampton were also responsible for the widening of the Victoria Railway Bridge at Pimlico.
1867 Sir Samuel Morton Peto, Bart., Edward Ladd Betts, and Thomas Russell Crampton, all of Great George-street, Westminster, in the county of Middlesex, being Traders, and carrying on business in copartnership as Contractors for Constructing Public Works, and Builders, under the style or firm of Peto, Betts, and Crampton, were adjudicated bankrupts on the 3rd day of July, 1867.[2]