26 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK oh. 



that if the Astronomers and Mathematicians 

 could be wrong by such a little trifle as 2,500,000 

 miles they could hardly lay claim to exact 

 Science. 



Undoubtedly the father, Sir J. W. Lubbock, 

 was more than a little of a martinet. His 

 austerity was perhaps nicely balanced by the 

 adoring tenderness of Lady Lubbock for her 

 children. The tendency to order things precisely 

 according to his judgment comes out amusingly 

 in the following extract from Mr. Philip Norman's 

 admirable Annals of the West Kent Cricket Club : 



Sir John William Lubbock, Bart., the eminent 

 mathematician and astronomer, does not seem to have 

 cared much for cricket in his youth, though his name 

 appears once or twice in the records of practice days at 

 Prince's Plain. During his early married life he lived at 

 Mitcham Grove, in a house (now pulled down) which had 

 previously belonged to the Hoares ; but after succeeding 

 to the baronetcy in 1840, he settled permanently at High 

 Elms, which at the beginning of the century had been 

 a mere farm, bought from the Wells family. There, as 

 his sons began to grow up, he made a delightful cricket 

 ground and organised matches in which for some years 

 he used to take part. Having hardly played at all till 

 he was past 40, he was of necessity a very moderate 

 performer, but he enjoyed the exercise, and his matches 

 gave pleasure to many. I remember playing there 

 when quite a little boy. Sir John, on this occasion, 

 marked the positions of the fields by heaps of daisies 

 from which it was deemed treason to stray. He kept 

 a pony saddled at the cricket ground, and mounted and 

 rode off at a rapid pace when his presence was required 

 elsewhere. One of the things that astonished my young 

 mind was his peculiar mode of wearing his pads, or 

 leg-guards ; they were inside his trousers, being strips 

 of india-rubber passed through loops, if I am not mis- 

 taken, so that they remained as fixtures for the day. I 

 have since found that Felix recommends something of 

 the sort in his book called Felix on the Bat. 



