Eric Lubbock, 4th Baron Avebury

Early life and career

A descendant of William Lubbock (1701–54), he was the son of the Honourable Maurice Fox Pitt Lubbock (the sixth son of John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury) and the Honourable Mary Katherine Adelaide Stanley, daughter of Arthur Lyulph Stanley, 5th Baron Sheffield and Stanley of Alderley.

Lubbock was educated at Upper Canada College, an all-boys private school in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and at Harrow School, an all-boys public school in London, England. He read Engineering Science at Balliol College, Oxford.

He served as a Lieutenant in the Welsh Guards and joined Rolls-Royce in 1951. At the company, he was employed as a production manager (1951–1956) and as a production engineer (1956–1960).

Parliamentary career

Having joined the Liberal Party in 1960 and become a councillor the following year, Lubbock stood as his party's candidate at the Orpington by-election on 15 March 1962, and gained the seat with a majority of 7,855. This election victory, with a swing of nearly 22% from the Conservatives, was seen as a revival of the Liberal Party at the time. and brought the number of Liberal MPs to seven. Subsequently, Lubbock was dubbed "Orpington Man". However, the party did not make the anticipated recovery; it was hampered by organisational difficulties and progress was slow, with a loss of votes and seats under Harold Wilson’s Labour government.

As the MP for Orpington, he was appointed Chief Whip by Jo Grimond in 1963, a post he held until 1970. When the party leader Jo Grimond resigned in 1967, Eric Lubbock was one of the three Liberal MPs who stood for the position. Jeremy Thorpe, however, won with six votes to Emlyn Hooson's and Lubbock's three apiece.

In the Commons, Lubbock was on the Speaker's Commission on Electoral Law (1964–66), and proposed STV in multi-member constituencies, only to be voted down by 18–1. He also proposed reducing the voting age to 18, on which two Labour Members supported him. Orpington reverted to being a Conservative seat at the 1970 general election. On losing the seat Lubbock said, "In 1962 the wise, far-seeing people of Orpington elected me as their Member; in 1970 the fools threw me out".

The following year, John Lubbock, 3rd Baron Avebury died without a male heir and Eric Lubbock, his cousin, succeeded him. Now Baron Avebury, he sat on the Royal Commission on Standards of Conduct in Public Life (1974–76), and was Liberal Spokesman on Immigration and Race Relations (1971–83). Throughout his time in politics he was involved in human rights activism, both in and beyond Parliament. In 1976, he founded the Parliamentary Human Rights Group, which he chaired for the next 21 years. He continued as Vice-Chair after standing down.

In 1987, as a jocular protest against the cost of cremation, he offered to leave his body to Battersea dogs home "to vary the inmates’ diet." On being advised that the dogs would probably accept but the home's management wouldn't, he made the same offer to the cats. He was a member of the Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs Team, speaking on conflict resolution and human rights.

Human rights

Eric was a keen advocate of human rights and the separation of church and state. He was as a patron of the British Humanist Association and an honorary associate of the National Secular Society, which awarded him Secularist of the Year 2009 for his role alongside Evan Harris in the abolition of blasphemous libel. In September 2010, Avebury, along with 54 other public figures, signed an open letter for the British Humanist Association in The Guardian, stating their opposition to Pope Benedict XVI's state visit to the UK.

He was President of the Peru Support Group, and advocates on human rights issues in Peru, and was a Patron of Prisoners Abroad, a charity that supports the welfare of Britons imprisoned overseas and their families. Lord Avebury was a Co-Chair of the CHT (Chittagong Hill Tracts) Commission, which monitors the implementation of the CHT Peace Accord by the Bangladesh Government, and a member of the All Party Parliamentary Humanist Group. He frequently raised matters related to British nationality law in Parliament. In 1964 he sought a review of the Timothy Evans case. Evans was subsequently granted a posthumous pardon. He was a strong supporter of the citizenship rights of the solely British ethnic minorities in Hong Kong, and fought for their rights.

In recognition of his human rights work, Eric was made the inaugural recipient of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Peace Prize in 2009.

Maurice Lubbock Memorial Fund

Trained as an engineer, Lord Avebury retained an interest in science and engineering. Together with his mother in 1957, he set up the Maurice Lubbock Memorial Fund to commemorate his father, following his early death. This established a Trust, which he chaired for 56 years, aimed at supporting Engineering and Management at Balliol College, Oxford. The Trust is still active and is one of the longest lasting of such ventures. He was elected to an Honorary Fellowship at Balliol College in 2004.

Conservation Society

Lubbock was the President of the Conservation Society from 1972-1984. During his Presidency, he proposed a form of words to introduce the concept of 'sustainable development' into Article 2 of the Treaty of Rome in a letter to The Times of 20 January 1975. This contributed to the successful debate on changing the wording of Article 2 to include a reference to sustainable development.

Private life

He married twice:

1. Kina-Maria O'Kelly de Gallagh (2 September 1953 – 1983)
   1. Lyulph Ambrose Jonathan Lubbock, 5th Baron Avebury (born 15 June 1954); married Susan MacDonald 14 May 1977, with issue.
   2. The Hon. Maurice Patrick Guy Lubbock (born 5 November 1955); married Diana Tobin 1982 with issue.
   3. The Hon. Victoria Sarah Maria Lubbock (born 27 April 1959); married Alan Binnie 1983 with issue.
2. Lindsay Stewart (1985–2016)
   1. The Hon. John William Stewart Lubbock (born 8 August 1985)

Lord Avebury lived in Camberwell, London. He was an atheist and humanist; he was both a member of the All Party Parliamentary Humanist Group and a patron of the British Humanist Association. He reconciled his humanist beliefs with Buddhism, and lived as a secular Buddhist. He died in London on 14 February 2016 from myelofibrosis.