English landowner. He has contributed to political literature, though not so voluminously as to scientific, and he has taken an active part in measures to promote the extension and improvement of science-teaching in the schools. The amount of work that he has done could have been accomplished at his age only by means of the most indefatigable industry, and the most economical use of time. He has always been an early riser, and contrives, whenever it is possible, to get three or four hours' work in the morning before breakfast. His career is an example of what can be accomplished in a life well spent. No doubt, says a biographer, many adventitious advantages existed in his case, which poorer men do not possess. He had no anxiety as to bread; but, on the other hand, he does as much mechanical work every day as would entitle him to a very fair return for his labors. Moreover, the calls of his public position make inroads on his time, of which the man who is his own master, by reason of his living in the by-ways of the world, has little idea.
Sir John has received the appointment of the crown as a member of the Senate of the University of London, and has been for several years vice-chancellor of the same institution. He has also been a trustee of the British Museum, a member of the Public School Commission, a member of the International Monetary Commission, and a member of the Royal Commission for the Advancement of Science. In literary, scientific, and scholastic honors he is a Doctor of Civil Law of Oxford, an LL. D. of Dublin, a Fellow of the Royal, Linnæan, Geographical, Geological, and Antiquarian Societies; he has been President of the Ethnological Society, of its successor, the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain, Vice-President of the Royal Society, Vice-President and President of the Linnæan Society, the principal English biological society; and Vice-President and President of the British Association, having been selected for the latter office to preside over the last (the jubilee) meeting of the association, at York.
Sir John Lubbock was married in 1856 to Miss Ellen Frances, daughter of the Rev. Peter Hordern, of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Lancashire, and has a family of three sons and three daughters. Lady Lubbock was a woman of considerable natural ability, and enjoyed the privilege of giving much encouragement and aid to her husband by the interest she took in all his pursuits. Her sympathies were also extended to her husband's friends, who are still able to remember the hospitable reception they used to meet at her hands. She contributed a paper on "The Shell-Mounds of Denmark" to the volume of "Vacation Journals" for 1862-63. She was a contributor to "Nature" from time to time, and wrote a few articles which appeared in a published form elsewhere. These works, however, "Nature" remarks, "would afford but a poor criterion of all that she has directly and indirectly done toward the advancement of natural science." She died in 1879.
