SKETCH OF SIB JOHN LUBBOCK, BART, M. P. 105 



don, on the 30th of April, 1834. His early education was received in 

 a private school kept by Mr. Waring ; at a later period he was sent to 

 Eton College, where he had the Earl of Dalkeith, Lord Grey de Wil- 

 ton, Mr. Lefevre, and Mr. Chitty, Q. C, for fellow-pupils. He was 

 withdrawn from school when fourteen years old without being al- 

 lowed to enter the university, and put into the bank ; for his father's 

 partners had been taken suddenly ill, and it was deemed important that 

 he should be prepared to assume control of the establishment as soon 

 as possible in case death should take away its heads. His attention 

 was here directed to quite different objects from those in which he 

 had been interested, but he did justice to their demands, and exerted 

 himself to become a complete man of business, with a success to 

 which his subsequent accomplishments as a banker and the mark he 

 has left in English methods of business bear ample testimony. He 

 did not suffer this, however, to divert him from his former pursuits. 

 He passed his leisure at the family seat of High Elms, near Farnbor- 

 ough, in Kent, " a goodly mansion in the midst of an estate of four- 

 teen hundred acres, which had been purchased by his grandfather." 

 Here he continued his studies in natural history, and made it an object 

 to supplement and extend that education only the foundations of 

 which are laid at school and college. 



The banking-house of which Sir John Lubbock is the head that of 

 Robarts, Lubbock & Co., has been in existence since 1T50, has always 

 stood high, and has not decreased in stability during the administra- 

 tion of its present chief. Lender that administration it has promoted 

 a reform in the methods of transacting business throughout the king- 

 dom that has greatly facilitated and expedited it, by securing the ex- 

 tension of the clearing-house system of London to the country banks. 



The clearing-house has long been a most useful institution among 

 the London bankers for collecting the checks paid in by their custom- 

 ers with greater facility than by sending round to the various banks and 

 getting the money over the counter, and, in their turn, having to pay to 

 the messengers of other bankers the charges drawn on them. In the 

 clearing-house building as many desks are arranged as there are bankers 

 connected with the institution, each of which is allotted to a particu- 

 lar banker. A clerk, going with a number of checks upon some or all 

 the bankers, puts those which are drawn upon each on his desk. At 

 the same time all the other banks holding checks upon his bank place 

 them upon his desk. When the day's business is completed, only the 

 balances shown upon posting the checks pro and con have to be paid 

 over, and this is done through drafts upon a special account in the 

 Bank of England. Mr. Babbage had called attention to the propor- 

 tion of transactions of bankers that passed through the clearing-house 

 to those that did not. Acting upon the suggestion given by Mr. Bab- 

 bage, Sir John, taking an amount of $115,000,000 that passed through 

 the hands of his hcvuse during the last few days of 1864, analyzed the 



