Open Spaces Society also campaigned for the creation of the National Trust. Its founders and early members included John Stuart Mill, Lord Eversley, William Morris, Sir Robert Hunter, and Octavia Hill. The last two founded the National Trust in 1895 along with Canon Rawnsley. Lord Eversley, as George Lefevre, was a Liberal MP and became a junior minister at the Board of Trade in Gladstone’s government. He held a variety of posts including Commissioner of Works. He opened Hampton Court Park, Kew Gardens and Regent’s Park to the public. Over the last century and a half the Society has preserved commons for the
National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty under the Charities Act 2006. Its formal purpose is: The trust was founded on 12 January 1895 by Octavia Hill (1838–1912), Sir Robert Hunter (1844–1913) and Hardwicke Rawnsley (1851–1920), prompted in part by the earlier success of Charles Eliot and the Kyrle Society. In the early days, the trust was concerned primarily with protecting open spaces and a variety of threatened buildings; its first property was Alfriston Clergy House, and a decorative cornice there may have given the trust its sprig of oak symbol. The trust's first nature reserve was Wicken Fen, and its first archaeological monument was White Barrow.