John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury

The Lord Avebury
Woodburytype print of Lord Avebury in middle age
Born	30 April 1834 (1834-04-30) London, England
Died	28 May 1913 (1913-05-29) (aged 79) Broadstairs, Kent, England
Nationality	English
Fields	Finance, politics, archaeology, biology, spelling
Known for	Bank holidays
Influences	Charles Darwin
Notable awards	Prestwich Medal (1903)

The Right Honourable John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury PC FRS DCL LLD (30 April 1834 – 28 May 1913), known as Sir John Lubbock, 4th Baronet from 1865 until 1900, was a banker, Liberal politician, philanthropist, scientist and polymath.

He was a banker and worked with his family’s company, but also made significant contributions in archaeology, ethnography, and several branches of biology. He helped establish archaeology as a scientific discipline, and was also influential in nineteenth-century debates concerning evolutionary theory.^[1]^:514 He introduced the first law on the protection of the UK's archaeological and architectural heritage.

Early life

John Lubbock was born in 1834, the son of Sir John Lubbock, 3rd Baronet, a London banker, and was brought up in the family home of High Elms Estate, near Downe in Kent. During 1842 his father brought home a "great piece of news": the young Lubbock said later that he initially thought that the news might be of a new pony, and was disappointed to learn it was only that Charles Darwin was moving to Down House in the village.^[2] The youth was soon a frequent visitor to Down House, and became the closest of Darwin’s younger friends.^[3] Their relationship stimulated young Lubbock’s passion for science and evolutionary theory.^[1]

In 1845, Lubbock began studies at Eton College, and after graduation was employed by his father's bank (which later amalgamated with Coutts & Co), of which he became a partner at the age of twenty-two. In 1865 he succeeded to the baronetcy.^[4]

Business and politics

In the early 1870s Lubbock became increasingly interested in politics. In 1870, and again in 1874, he was elected as a Liberal Party Member of Parliament (MP) for Maidstone. He lost the seat at the election of 1880, but was at once elected member for London University, of which he had been vice-chancellor since 1872.^[4] As an MP, Lubbock had a distinguished political career, with four main political agendas: promotion of the study of science in primary and secondary schools; the national debt, free trade, and related economic issues; protection of ancient monuments; securing of additional holidays and shorter working hours for the working classes.^[1] He was successful with numerous enactments in parliament, including the Bank Holidays Act of 1871 and the Ancient Monuments Act of 1882, along with another 28 acts of Parliament. When the Liberals split in 1886 on the issue of Irish Home Rule, Lubbock joined the breakaway Liberal Unionist Party in opposition to Irish home rule. A prominent supporter of the Statistical Society, he took an active part in criticizing the encroachment of municipal trading and the increase of the municipal debt.^[4]

In 1879 Lubbock was elected the first president of the Institute of Bankers. In 1881 he was president of the British Association, and from 1881 to 1886 president of the Linnean Society of London.^[4] In March 1883 he founded the Bank Clerks Orphanage, which in 1986 became the Bankers’ Benevolent Fund – a charity for bank employees, past and present, and their dependants. In January 1884 he founded the Proportional Representation Society, later to become the Electoral Reform Society.

Kingsgate Castle in Kent was rebuilt by Lord Avebury.

Caricature from Punch, 1882

In recognition of his contributions to the sciences, Lubbock received honorary degrees from the universities of Oxford, Cambridge (where he was Rede lecturer in 1886), Edinburgh, Dublin and Würzburg; and in 1878 was appointed a trustee of the British Museum. From 1888 to 1892 he was president of the London Chamber of Commerce; from 1889 to 1890 vice-chairman and from 1890 to 1892 chairman of the London County Council.^[4]

In February 1890 he was appointed a privy councillor;^[5] and was chairman of the committee of design for the new coinage in 1891. On 22 January 1900 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Avebury, of Avebury, in the county of Wiltshire,^[6] his title commemorating the largest Stone Age site in Britain, which he had helped to preserve. (He had purchased it in 1871 when the site was threatened with destruction.) He was President of the Royal Statistical Society from 1900 to 1902.^[7] In November, 1905, Lord Avebury, together with Lord Courtney of Penwith, founded an Anglo-German Friendship Committee which sought to counteract the influence of the British war party, whose anti-German propaganda was then at its zenith, and smooth the way towards more amicable relations between England and Germany.

The quotation, "We may sit in our library and yet be in all quarters of the earth", is widely attributed to Lubbock. This variation appears in his book The Pleasures of Life.

Archaeology and biological science

In addition to his work at his father’s bank, Lubbock took a keen interest in archaeology and evolutionary theory. A collection of Iron Age antiquities Lubbock and Sir John Evans excavated at the site of Hallstatt in Austria is now in the British Museum's collection.^[8]^[9] He spoke in support of the evolutionist Thomas Henry Huxley at the famous 1860 Oxford evolution debate. During the 1860s, he published many articles in which he used archaeological evidence to support Darwin’s theory.^[1] In 1864, he became one of the founding members (along with Thomas Henry Huxley and others) of the elite X Club, a dining club composed of nine gentlemen to promote the theories of natural selection and academic liberalism. During the 1860s he held a number of influential academic positions, including President of the Ethnological Society from 1864–65, Vice-President of Linnean Society in 1865, and President of the International Congress of Prehistoric Archaeology in 1868. In 1865 he published Pre-Historic Times, which became a standard archaeology textbook for the remainder of the century, with the seventh and final edition published in 1913.^[1]

His second book, On the Origin of Civilization, was published in 1870. During 1871, he purchased part of the Avebury estate to protect its prehistoric stone monuments from impending destruction. During the early 1870s, he held the position of President of the Royal Anthropological Society from 1871–73, as well as the position of Vice President of the Royal Society in 1871. During this period he worked with John Evans, the other key figure in the establishment of the discipline of archaeology.^[1]

In 1865 Lubbock published what was possibly the most influential archaeological text book of the nineteenth century, Pre-historic times, as illustrated by ancient remains, and the manners and customs of modern savages. He invented the terms "Palaeolithic" and "Neolithic" to denote the Old and New Stone Ages respectively. More notably, he introduced a Darwinian-type theory of human nature and development. "What was new was Lubbock’s ... insistence that, as a result of natural selection, human groups had become different from each other, not only culturally, but also in their biological capacities to utilize culture." ^[10]

Lubbock complained in the preface to Pre-Historic Times about Charles Lyell:

"Note.—In his celebrated work on the Antiquity of Man, he coined the term Neolithic in 1865. Sir Charles Lyell has made much use of my earlier articles in the Natural History Review, frequently, indeed, extracting whole sentences verbatim, or nearly so. But as he has in these cases omitted to mention the source from which his quotations were derived, my readers might naturally think that I had taken very unjustifiable liberties with the work of the eminent geologist. A reference to the respective dates will, however, protect me from any such inference. The statement made by Sir Charles Lyell, in a note to page 11 of his work, that my article on the Danish Shell-mounds was published after his sheets were written, is an inadvertence, regretted, I have reason to believe, as much by its author as it is by me."^[11]

In 1871 he bought land at Avebury to prevent part of the ancient stone circle from being built on. This, and other threats to the nation's heritage, persuaded him that some legal protection was needed. In 1874 he introduced a parliamentary bill that would identify a list of ancient sites that deserved legal protection. After several later attempts and against some opposition it was not until 1882 that a much watered down version, The Ancient Monuments Act, came into being. Though restricted to 68 largely prehistoric monuments it was the forerunner of all later laws governing the UK's archaeological and architectural heritage.^[12]

Lubbock was also an amateur biologist of some distinction, writing books on hymenoptera (Ants, Bees and Wasps: a record of observations on the habits of the social hymenoptera. Kegan Paul, London; New York: Appleton, 1884), on insect sense organs and development, on the intelligence of animals, and on other natural history topics. He discovered that ants were sensitive to light in the near ultraviolet range of the electromagnetic spectrum.^[13]^[14] The following verse from Punch of 1882 captured him perfectly:

Lord Avebury speaking during the presentation of the first replica of Diplodocus carnegii to the trustees of the British Museum of Natural History, 12 May 1905

How doth the Banking Busy Bee,

Improve his shining Hours?

By studying on Bank Holidays,

Strange insects and Wild Flowers!

He had extensive correspondence with Charles Darwin, who lived nearby in Down House.^[15] Lubbock stayed in Downe except for a brief period from 1861–65, when he lived in Chislehurst. Both men were active advocates of English spelling reform, and members of the Spelling reform Association, precursor to the Simplified Spelling Society. Darwin rented land, originally from Lubbock’s father, for the Sandwalk wood where he performed his daily exercise, and in 1874 agreed with Lubbock to exchange the land for a piece of pasture in Darwin’s property.^[16] When Darwin died in 1882, Lubbock suggested the honour of burial in Westminster Abbey, organising a letter to the dean to arrange this, and was one of the pallbearers.^[3]

Family

Battersea Library plaque

Lubbock was one of eight brothers and one sister;^[17] three brothers, Alfred,^[18] Nevile^[19] and Edgar,^[20] played first-class cricket for Kent. Edgar and Alfred also played football and played together for Old Etonians in the 1875 FA Cup Final.

Lubbock's first wife was Ellen Frances Horden, who died in 1879. Five years later he married Alice Lane Fox, the daughter of Augustus Pitt Rivers. He rebuilt Kingsgate Castle, near Broadstairs in Kent, as his family home, where he died in 1913.

He was succeeded by his eldest son, John.

References

1 2 3 4 5 6 Mithen, Steven (2006). After the ice: a global human history, 20,000–5,000 BC. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-01570-3.
↑ Howarth & Howarth 1933, pp. 72–73
1 2 Freeman 1978, p. 192
1 2 3 4 5 One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Avebury, John Lubbock, 1st Baron". Encyclopædia Britannica 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
↑ London Gazette issue 26022 11 February 1890
↑ The London Gazette: no. 27156. p. 427. 23 January 1900.
↑ "Royal Statistical Society Presidents". Royal Statistical Society. Retrieved 6 August 2010.
↑ British Museum Collection
↑ British Museum Collection
↑ Trigger, Bruce G. (1989) A History of Archaeological Thought, Cambridge, p.173
↑ Lubbock J. (1865) Pre-Historic Times, Williams & Norgate, London
↑ Thurley, Simon."The Men from the Ministry", Yale University Press. 2013. ISBN 978-0-300-19572-9
↑ Lubbock, J. (1881). "Observations on ants, bees, and wasps. IX. Color of flowers as an attraction to bees: Experiments and considerations thereon.". J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Zool.) 16: 110–112. doi:10.1111/j.1096-3642.1882.tb02275.x.
↑ Kevan, Peter G.; Chittka, Lars & Dyer, Adrian G. (2001). "Limits to the Salience of Ultraviolet: Lessons from Colour Vision in Bees and Birds". J. Exp. Biol. 204 (14): 2571–2580. PMID 11511673. Cite uses deprecated parameter |coauthors= (help)
↑ "Darwin Correspondence Project", John Lubbock, 1834–1913". Retrieved 28 May 2012.
↑ Freeman 1978, p. 125
↑ "Sir John William Lubbock, 3rd Bt.". The Peerage.com. 29 January 2011. Retrieved 9 February 2011.
↑ "Alfred Lubbock". Cricket Archive. Retrieved 10 February 2011.
↑ "Nevile Lubbock". Cricket Archive. Retrieved 10 February 2011.
↑ "Edgar Lubbock". Cricket Archive. Retrieved 10 February 2011.

Books

The following is a list of publications by Sir John Lubbock, arranged in chronological order by the dates of the first editions of each work.

Lubbock J. (1865) Pre-Historic Times, As Illustrated by Ancient Remains, and the Manners and Customs of Modern Savages, Williams & Norgate, London
Lubbock J. (1870) The Origin of Civilisation and the Primitive Condition of Man, Longmans, Green & Co., London
Lubbock J. (1871) Monograph on the Collembola and Thysanura, Ray Society, London
Lubbock J. (1872) On the Origin and the Metamorphoses of Insects, Macmillan & Co., London
Lubbock J. (1874) Scientific Lectures, Macmillan & Co., London
Lubbock J. (1879) Addresses, Political and Educational, Macmillan & Co., London
Lubbock J. (1881) Fifty Years of Science, Being the Address Delivered at York to the British Association, August 1881, Macmillan & Co., London
Lubbock J. (1882) Chapters in Popular Natural History, National Society, London
Lubbock J. (1883) On Representation, Swan Sonnenschein & Co., Berne
Lubbock J. (1882) Flowers, Fruits and Leaves, Macmillan & Co., London
Lubbock J. (1883) On the Senses, Instincts and Intelligence of Animals, With Special Reference to Insects, Keegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, & Co. Ltd., London: 512 pp.
Lubbock J. (1887–89) The pleasures of life, (2 volumes) Macmillan & Co., London
Lubbock J. (1890) Flowers and Insects, Macmillan & Co., London
Lubbock J. (1891) Ants, Bees and Wasps: A Record of Observations on the Habits of the Social Hymenoptera, Keegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, & Co. Ltd., London: 442 pp.
Lubbock J. (1894) The Use of Life, Macmillan & Co., London
Lubbock J. (1898) On Buds and Stipules, Keegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, & Co. Ltd., London: 239 pp.

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury

Wikimedia Commons has media related to John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury.

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Author:John Lubbock

John Lubbock at Wikiquote
Works by John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury at Project Gutenberg
Works by or about John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury at Internet Archive
Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by John Lubbock
"John Lubbock— forgotten polymath", by Phillip Steadman, New Scientist, 10 January 1980, p84
Obituary
Electoral Reform Society
Lubbock J. (1865) Pre-historic times,
Lubbock J. (1871) Monograph of the Collembola and Thysanura, Ray Society, London
Lubbock J. (1879) Addresses, Political and Educational, Macmillan & Co., London
John Lubbock at Minnesota State University eMuseum
John Lubbock at bartleby.com
"History of High Elms Golf Club and Course". Retrieved 2009-10-18.
portrait
Cricket career on Cricket Archive

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Charles Buxton James Whatman	Member of Parliament for Maidstone 1870–1880 With: James Whatman 1865–1874 Sir Sydney Waterlow 1874–1880	Succeeded by Alexander Henry Ross John Evans Freke-Aylmer
Preceded by Robert Lowe	Member of Parliament for London University 1880–1900	Succeeded by Sir Michael Foster
Political offices
Preceded by The Earl of Rosebery	Chairman of the London County Council 1890–1892	Succeeded by The Earl of Rosebery
Academic offices
Preceded by George Grote	Vice-Chancellor of University of London 1872–1880	Succeeded by Sir George Jessel
Preceded by Andrew Carnegie	Rector of the University of St Andrews 1907–1910	Succeeded by The Earl of Rosebery
Peerage of the United Kingdom
New creation	Baron Avebury 1900–1913	Succeeded by John Lubbock
Baronetage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by John Lubbock	Baronet (of Lammas) 1865–1913	Succeeded by John Lubbock

Presidents of the Royal Statistical Society

19th Century	1834–1836 The Marquess of Lansdowne 1836–1838 Sir Charles Lemon, Bt 1838–1840 The Earl FitzWilliam 1840–1842 Viscount Sandon 1842–1843 The Marquess of Lansdowne 1843–1845 Lord Ashley 1845–1847 The Lord Monteagle of Brandon 1847–1849 The Earl FitzWilliam 1849–1851 The Earl of Harrowby 1851–1853 The Lord Overstone 1853–1855 The Earl FitzWilliam 1855–1857 The Earl of Harrowby 1857–1859 Lord Stanley 1859–1861 Lord John Russell 1861–1863 Sir John Pakington, Bt 1863–1865 William Henry Sykes 1865–1867 The Lord Houghton 1867–1869 William Ewart Gladstone 1869–1871 William Newmarch 1871–1873 William Farr 1873–1875 William Guy 1875–1877 James Heywood 1877–1879 George Shaw-Lefevre 1879–1880 Thomas Brassey 1880–1882 James Caird 1882–1884 Robert Giffen 1884–1886 Rawson W. Rawson 1886–1888 George Goschen 1888–1890 Thomas Graham Balfour 1890–1892 Frederic J. Mouat 1892–1894 Charles Booth 1894–1896 The Lord Farrer 1896–1897 John Biddulph Martin 1897 Alfred Edmund Bateman 1897–1899 Leonard Courtney 1899–1900 Henry Fowler 1900–1902 The Lord Avebury

20th Century	1902–1904 Patrick George Craigie 1904–1905 Sir Francis Powell, Bt 1905–1906 The Earl of Onslow 1906–1907 Richard Martin 1907–1909 Sir Charles Dilke, Bt 1909–1910 Jervoise Athelstane Baines 1910–1912 Lord George Hamilton 1912–1914 Francis Ysidro Edgeworth 1914–1915 The Lord Welby 1915–1916 Lord George Hamilton 1916–1918 Bernard Mallet, Registrar General 1918–1920 Herbert Samuel 1920–1922 R. Henry Rew 1922–1924 The Lord Emmott 1924–1926 Udny Yule 1926–1928 The Viscount D'Abernon 1928–1930 A. William Flux 1930–1932 Sir Josiah Stamp 1932–1934 The Lord Meston 1934–1936 Major Greenwood 1936–1938 The Lord Kennet 1938–1940 Arthur Lyon Bowley 1940–1941 Henry William Macrosty 1941 Hector Leak 1941–1943 William Beveridge 1943–1945 Charles Ernest Snow 1945–1947 The Lord Woolton 1947–1949 David Heron 1949–1950 Sir Geoffrey Heyworth 1950–1952 Austin Bradford Hill 1952–1954 Ronald Fisher 1954–1955 The Lord Piercy 1955–1957 Egon Pearson 1957–1959 Harry Campion 1959–1960 Hugh Beaver 1960–1962 Maurice Kendall 1962–1964 Joseph Oscar Irwin 1964–1965 Sir Paul Chambers 1965–1966 L. H. C. Tippett 1966–1967 M. S. Bartlett 1967–1968 Frank Yates 1968–1969 Arthur Cockfield 1969–1970 R. G. D. Allen 1970–1971 Bernard Benjamin 1971–1972 George Alfred Barnard 1972–1973 Harold Wilson 1973–1974 D. J. Finney 1974–1975 Henry Daniels 1975–1977 Stella Cunliffe 1977–1978 Henry Wynn 1978–1980 Sir Claus Moser 1980–1982 David Cox 1982–1984 Peter Armitage 1984–1985 Walter Bodmer 1985–1986 John Nelder 1986–1987 James Durbin 1987–1989 John Kingman 1989–1991 Peter G. Moore 1991–1993 T. M. F. Smith 1993–1995 D. J. Bartholomew 1995–1997 Adrian Smith 1997–1999 R. N. Curnow 1999–2001 Denise Lievesley

21st Century	2001–2003 Peter Green 2003–2005 Andy Grieve 2005–2007 Tim Holt 2008–2009 David Hand 2010–2010 Bernard Silverman (resigned Feb 2010; replaced pro tem by David Hand) 2011–2012 Valerie Isham 2013–John Pullinger

Category List

Authority control	WorldCat VIAF: 49304122 LCCN: n50038652 ISNI: 0000 0001 2132 0271 GND: 118780662 SUDOC: 032797680 BNF: cb12375721h (data) NKC: jn20000810182

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Sunday, February 14, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.