John Lubbock

Founder of the Electoral Reform Society, then known as the Proportional Representation Society

John Lubbock
Sir John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury, 4th Baronet, PC, DL, FRS

Sir John Lubbock founded the Proportional Representation Society, as the Electoral Reform Society was then known, in 1884.

As well as to the cause of electoral reform, Sir John made significant contributions in archaeology, ethnography, and several branches of biology. He coined the terms Palaeolithic and Neolithic and helped establish archaeology as a scientific discipline.

We have him to thank for both Bank Holidays and the first act to protect Britain’s ancient monuments.

When his friend Charles Darwin died in 1882, Lubbock suggested the honour of burial in Westminster Abbey, organising a letter to the dean to arrange this, and was one of the pallbearers.

Along with Charles Dodgson (better known as Lewis Carroll), C.P. Scott, editor of the Manchester Guardian and Thomas Hare, inventor of the Single Transferable Vote and an equal number of Conservative and Liberal MPs, he founded the Society in January 1884.

Sir John Lubbock died in 1913, just a few years before the Single Transferable Vote’s first use for national elections in Malta and Ireland.