a Fellow of the Royal Society in June. The bridge across the Tweed is a 28-arch stone viaduct, and was opened by the Queen on 29 August 1850. At the celebratory dinner Robert sat beside the Queen; he had just been offered a knighthood, but had declined. Politics In the summer of 1847, Robert was invited to stand in the election for the Member of Parliament for Whitby and was elected unopposed; he continued as their MP for the rest of his life. He entered Parliament as a member of the Conservative Party, holding strong protectionist Tory views and opposed to free trade. His maiden speech was in favour of the Great Exhibition and, with Brunel, became one of the Commissioners. Robert spoke against educational reform, saying workmen needed only to learn how to do their jobs, although he made donations to educational organisations. In 1850, the pope appointed Bishop Wiseman as the first English Roman Catholic Cardinal since the Reformation; Robert wrote in a private letter that this was aggressive, saying that in the "battle as to the mere form in which the creator is to be worshiped the true spirit of Christianity is never allowed to appear." He later voiced strong opposition to the decision to become involved in Crimea but supported the government in January 1855, although the government lost the vote and the prime minister resigned. Robert had become a member of the in 1846, and the following year had accompanied Talabot and Alois Negrelli to look at the feasibility of a Suez canal. He advised against a canal, saying it would quickly fill up with sand, and assisted in the building of a railway between Alexandria and Cairo, with two tubular bridges that he had designed. This opened in 1854, and was extended to Suez in 1858. He spoke in Parliament against possible involvement in a Suez canal scheme in 1857 and 1858. The house that has no knocker Robert had moved to 34 Gloucester Square in 1847; when in London he would socialise at the Athenaeum and Carlton clubs, delaying returning home until late. By 1850, Robert had been involved in a third of the country's railway system, and had prematurely aged and become ill with chronic nephritis, then known as Bright's Disease, a condition he had come to share with Isambard Brunel, for much the same reasons. Robert found that he attracted the