In 1834, the infant Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) asked Britain’s most eminent architect, Sir John Soane to be its first President but when he refused, it turned instead to the aristocratic amateur architect, Thomas Philip Robinson, 2nd Earl de Grey (1781–1859). His overriding interest was architecture and he had the money to indulge himself. His masterwork was Wrest Park, Bedfordshire, one of the finest houses built in the eighteenth-century French style but without using imported paneling or building fragments, unlike so many other houses of the period. As a politician and member of the House of Lords, de Grey was in a position to promote the interests of the Institute and the architectural profession. He remained president for 25 years but since his death, his successors have been elected for only two years.