| Description | The correspondence of Sir John William Lubbock (1803-1865), astronomer, Treasurer of the Royal Society 1830-1835 and 1838-1845, and Vice-President 1830-1835, 1836-1837 and 1838-1846. The bound volumes of letters are in a single alphabetical sequence and provide information on a wide range of Lubbock's contemporaries, not exclusively in the field of science. The largest collections of scientific letters are from George Biddell Airy (113 letters) John George Children (128 letters) Joshua Alwyn Compton, 2nd Marquis of Northampton (98 letters) GPD de Pontecoulant (67 letters) and William Whewell (87 letters). There are smaller but no less important groups of letters from Charles Babbage, Francis Baily, Francis Beaufort, Charles Darwin, John Couch Adams, John Frederick William Herschel, Baden Powell and William Henry Fox Talbot. |
| AdminHistory | Third Baronet, astronomer and mathematician, John Lubbock was born on 29 March 1803 in Duke Street Westminster, only child of Sir John William Lubbock head of the banking firm of Lubbock & Co. by his wife Mary daughter of James Entwhistle of Rusholme, Manchester. Attended Eton, then in 1821 Trinity College Cambridge, where he graduated as first senior optime in 1825, and MA in 1833. In 1825 became a partner in his father's bank, dividing his time between business and study. Joined Astronomical Society in 1828, Royal Society 1829, member of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge from 1829. He aided the establishment of the 'British Almanac' in 1827, and published a descriptive memoir on tides in the 'Companion' volume in 1830. His research on tidal observations formed the subject of his Bakerian Lecture in 1836 and a paper to the Royal Society of 1837. In 1834 the Royal Society awarded him a Royal Medal for his work on tides. His researches into physical astronomy were directed towards simplifying methods, and introducing uniformity into the calculation of lunar and planetary perturbations. Mathematically, he was foremost among English mathematicians in adopting Laplace's doctrine of probablility and with Drinkwater was the author of a joint elementary treatise on probability published in 1830 (reprinted in 1844) by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. He was the first Vice-Chancellor of London University (1837-1842), one of the treasurers of the Great Exhibition of 1851, a visitor to the Royal Observatory, a member of various scientific commisions, especially those on standards and weights and measures. He saw the bank through the commercial panics of 1847 and 1857, and in 1860 amalgamated it with another bank, becoming Roberts, Lubbock & Co. From 1840 he led a retired life at his home at High Elms in Farnborough, Kent, where he died on 20 June 1865. On 20 June 1833 he had married Harriet, daughter of Lietenant General Hotham of York, and had 11 children, of whom the eldest, Sir John Lubbock was created Baron Avebury in 1900. |