John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury

John Lubbock was born in 1834, the son of Sir John Lubbock, 3rd Baronet, a London banker, and his wife Harriet. In 1840, his grandfather died and his father inherited the family wealth, title, 3000 acres including a 668 acre estate between Farnborough and Down. He was brought up in the family home of High Elms Estate, near Downe in Kent. The family had two homes, one at 29 Eaton Place, Belgrave Square where John was born, and another in Mitcham Grove. Lubbock senior had studied mathematics at Cambridge University and had written on probability, and on astronomy. A Fellow of the Royal Society, he was keenly involved in the scientific debates of the time, as well as serving as the Vice Chancellor of London University. 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. The youth was soon a frequent visitor to Down House, and became the closest of Darwin's younger friends. Their relationship stimulated young Lubbock's passion for science and evolutionary theory. John's mother, Harriet née Hotham, was deeply religious.

In 1843 he went to a preparatory school and, in 1845, Lubbock began studies at Eton College. He left Eton due to poor health in 1848 and Darwin suggested to Lubbock senior that he gift his son a microscope for his 14th birthday. In 1849 he joined the Royal Institution and attended lectures during the winter sessions from 1849 to 1851. He also attended Friday lectures and set himself a personal reading plan. After finishing school, he was employed by his father's bank, Lubbock & Co. (which later amalgamated with Coutts & Co.), of which he became a partner at the age of 22. Around 1852, he assisted Darwin's research by examining and illustrating barnacles. In 1865, he succeeded to the baronetcy.

Lubbock was one of eight brothers and three sisters; three brothers, Alfred, Nevile and Edgar, played first-class cricket for Kent. Edgar and Alfred also played football and played together for Old Etonians in the 1875 FA Cup Final. His nephew, Percy Lubbock, was a prominent man of letters and another nephew was the writer and historian Basil Lubbock.

Lubbock married Ellen Frances Horden in April 1856. Five years after her death, on 17 May 1884 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.

He was buried in St Giles the Abbott Church, in Farnborough, Kent. Three years later, his remains were disinterred and placed in a family burial ground a few hundred yards from the church, along with the original stone Celtic cross marking his grave. In 1986, Bromley Council, unknown to the Lubbock family, moved the cross back to the main church graveyard.

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. 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. He was successful with numerous enactments in Parliament, including the Bank Holidays Act 1871 and the Ancient Monuments Act 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 criticising the encroachment of municipal trading and the increase of the municipal debt.

Lubbock's thoughts about the nature and value of politics were deeply influenced by his scientific research, particularly his writings on early human society. He believed that the cognitive foundations of morality could be shaped through political economy, particularly through a national education system that implemented subjects mandated by the state. He held that the minds of children could be shaped in the direction of democracy, liberalism and morality through learning how to read and write. To this goal he was a strong supporter of the Elementary Education Act 1870 and he defended the introduction of the national curriculum during the 1870s and 1880s.

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. 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 helped found the Proportional Representation League, later to become the Electoral Reform Society. He authored the pamphlet Proportional Representation shortly after the founding of this organisation. He is credited with the now-common use of multi-member districts instead of country-wide districting proposed by Thomas Hare in his 1859 single transferable voting (STV) proposal.

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 was appointed a trustee of the British Museum in 1878. He received the German Order Pour le Mérite for Science and Arts in August 1902.

From 1888 to 1892, he was president of the London Chamber of Commerce, and he was later President of the Association of Chambers of Commerce of the United Kingdom. In local politics, he was from 1889 to 1890 vice-chairman and from 1890 to 1892 chairman of the London County Council. In February 1890 he was appointed a privy councillor; 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, his title commemorating the largest Stone Age site in Britain, which he had helped to preserve. He was President of the Royal Statistical Society from 1900 to 1902.

In November 1905, together with Lord Courtney of Penwith, he founded the 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.

Lubbock was a proponent of easy access for all to books and was deeply involved in the passing of the Public Libraries Act, 1892. The quotation, "We may sit in our library and yet be in all quarters of the earth", is often attributed to Lubbock. This variation appears in his book The Pleasures of Life.