Other important works in Manchester were Owens College (1870), which, after later additions including the Christie Library and the Whitworth Hall, became the Victoria University, the Salford gaol (1863), the National Provincial Bank of England (1888), St. Mary's Hospital (1899), and the Refuge Assurance offices (1891), the southern half of which with the tower were added by his son. Waterhouse's work in Liverpool, which was little less important, included University College and engineering laboratories (1884), the Royal Infirmary (1887), the London and North-Western hotel (1868), the Turner memorial (1882), the Pearl Life Assurance (1896), and the Seaman's Orphanage (1871), while in the neighbouring county the Yorkshire College of Science, Leeds (1878), was a prominent example of his work.
Meanwhile Waterhouse was in 1866 one of the selected competitors for the new law courts in London, and he came near securing the first place, which, after much delay, was awarded to George Edmund Street [q. v.]. Before the final decision was announced, Waterhouse was entrusted with the construction of the new Natural History Museum in South Kensington (1868), which was regarded as a sort of solatium for his failure to obtain the larger commission. His useful suggestion that there should be a corridor for students at the back of the bays of the great hall, which should give them private means of access to the cases, and a freedom of examination which could not be permitted to the general public, the architect was not allowed to carry into effect. The work was completed in 1880. The plan is broad and simple; yet the architecture is marked by great richness. Adhering to his habitual picturesque treatment of outline, Waterhouse here allowed himself an unwonted exuberance of detail; the result is a building very distinctive and original, but in striking contrast to the studiously restrained treatment of the neighbouring City and Guilds Institute, which he designed in 1881.
In 1876 the first portion of the head London office of the Prudential Assurance was built in Holborn. This was twice enlarged till in its complete state it formed the chief architectural feature of the street, and the offices of the society which Waterhouse planned rapidly became conspicuous objects in the larger provincial towns. In 1881 a commencement was made with St. Paul's School, at West Kensington. In this building, as in others of the period, terra cotta was largely employed. His demands for this material were so large and continuous, and led to so general a use of it by others, that he may almost be said to have created a great industry. Possessing the courage of his opinions, he was always ready to give a trial to new materials and new methods of construction if, after examination, they commended themselves to him. He was thus one of the first architects to make a free use of constructional ironwork. Waterhouse worked seldom in stone, and on the rare occasions of his employment of it he seemed to lean to new forms of expression. The new University Club, St. James's Street (1866), is a Gothic effort, but in the National Provincial Bank, Piccadilly branch (1892), and again in the National Liberal Club (1884), the design is Renaissance in character. In the case of the last building he turned to good use an awkward site, the quiet and dignified edifice being graced by an angle tower which strikes a pleasant note of refinement.
Waterhouse did comparatively little ecclesiastical work or restoration, but he laid a tender hand on the ancient fabric of Staple Inn in Holborn (1887). St. Elisabeth, Reddish (1880), which he built for Sir W. Houldsworth, is his most successful church; others are St. Mary, Twyford (1876), St. Bartholomew, Reading, with a chancel added by Bodley, and St. John's, Brooklands, Manchester (1865). He also built the King's Weigh House chapel, in South Audley Street, London, and the Lyndhurst Road congregational church, Hampstead (1883), and at Yattendon, where he acquired a house and estate in 1887, he restored the fabric of the church partly at his own expense.
Of collegiate work he had his share. At Cambridge he made additions to Gonville and Caius College, commencing in 1868; he built a new court at Trinity Hall (1872), a block of undergraduates' rooms at Jesus (1869); the master's lodge, hall, library, and lecture rooms at Pembroke (1871), and the Union, begun in 1866 and finished later. At Oxford he was responsible for the south front and, afterwards, the hall at Balliol (1867), the interior of the latter having been since altered by his son, and for the debating hall of the Union (1878). His largest domestic works were the reconstruction of Eaton Hall (1870), Iwerne Minster, Dorset (1877), Heythrop Hall (1871), rebuilt after destruction by fire in a severe classical style, Hutton Hall, Guisborough (1865) and Blackmoor, Hampshire (1866), for the first Lord Selborne, with
