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 of the Central Association of Bankers; and from 1879 to 1883 he was first president of the Institute of Bankers. His successful reforming zeal and wide outlook on finance led to his being invited in 1863 to stand as parliamentary candidate for the city of London. He refused the invitation, but after unsuccessful attempts for West Kent in 1865 and 1868, he was elected as liberal M.P. for Maidstone in 1870 and again in 1874. After defeat there in 1880 he was immediately returned unopposed for London University and retained the seat till he was raised to the peerage. He was made a privy councillor in 1890. Throughout his parliamentary career Lubbock addressed himself with unremitting zeal to securing the passage of acts on which he had set his mind. The best known of these was the Bank Holidays Act of 1871, which established the public holiday in August. Appreciation of this boon was reflected in a temporary currency of the term ‘St. Lubbock's day’ for the first Monday in August. Through his advocacy, and after many attempts, the Act for the Preservation of Ancient Monuments was passed in 1882 and the Early Closing Act in 1904. Besides these, numerous acts of parliament relating to banking and finance and to social amelioration owed much to Lubbock's efforts; and, though never a minister, he occupied important offices such as the chairmanship of the committee on public accounts (1888–1889).

Outside finance and parliament, Lubbock's interests and authority in public life are shown by his having been president of the London Chamber of Commerce (1888–1893) and an original member and subsequently chairman of the London County Council (1890–1892); in the world of education he was a member of the senate and then vice-chancellor of London University (1872–1880), chairman of the Society for the Extension of University Teaching (1894–1902), principal of the Working Men's College in Great Ormond Street (1883–1898), a trustee of the British Museum, and rector of St. Andrews University (1908).

In science, Lubbock's main interest lay in the study of the habits, life history, and ancestry of living things throughout the kingdom of plants and animals up to man himself. His studies covered a wide range of topics and bore fruit in many contributions to the proceedings of learned societies. Notwithstanding its range, Lubbock's scientific work was by no means superficial, and it is noteworthy that eleven years after his death several distinguished scientists combined to testify to its value [The Life-Work of Lord Avebury (Sir John Lubbock), 1924]. He was a pioneer in the experimental study of animal behaviour, and his researches on ants are probably the most valuable of his contributions to science. Of importance also are his studies of the life histories of insects and of the problem of their metamorphosis. He also published a standard Monograph of the Collembola and Thysanura (1873). In botany his contributions included much that was new and of permanent value. In geology he was actively associated with Darwin, Sir Charles Lyell, Sir Roderick Murchison, Adam Sedgwick, and their successors; and his interest in the new science of anthropology led him to travel to many centres in Europe where there was news or promise of fresh evidence of man's antiquity.

Lubbock was president of many scientific societies, and a member of the council of the Royal Society; he presided over the British Association at the jubilee meeting at York in 1881. The titles of his scientific books, such as Prehistoric Times (1865), On the Origin and Metamorphoses of Insects (1874), The Origin of Civilization … (1870), Ants, Bees, and Wasps (1882), On the Senses, Instincts, and Intelligence of Animals (1888), A Contribution to our Knowledge of Seedlings (1892), The Scenery of Switzerland (1896), On Buds and Stipules (1899), and Marriage, Totemism, and Religion (1911), indicate the wide ambit of his studies.

In addition to his gifts as an investigator, Lubbock possessed a missionary zeal for the intellectual enlightenment and moral elevation of the public, and he had a remarkable power of enlisting the interest of the unlearned world. His list of the Hundred Best Books (1891) was a stimulus to the multitude, whilst later works with titles so common-place as The Pleasures of Life (1887), The Beauties of Nature (1892), The Use of Life (1894), Peace and Happiness (1909), ran through many editions.

In his politics, Lubbock was throughout life a pronounced liberal, but in 1885 he associated himself with the unionist wing of the party. In religion, at an early period of his life, he moved away from orthodoxy and dogma, but his nature was in the highest degree reverent. He did not dissociate himself from the observances of religion, and both in speech and in print he refrained from anything controversial or aggressive. A high optimism gave his ethical books an instant hold on 346