270 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK 



CH. 



infant institution would have lacked its principal 

 and most valuable preceptor in teaching it the 

 right performance of its at first little understood 

 functions. 



Fortunately, it is no part of my task as Lord 

 Avebury's biographer to relate the genesis of the 

 London County Council out of the Metropolitan 

 Board of Works. Mr. Justin M'Carthy, in his 

 admirable History of our own Times, points out 

 how especially fortunate the new body was in 

 the varied ability and high eminence of its first 

 members. " The first Chairman," he writes, 

 " whom the County Council appointed, was no 

 less a man than Lord Rosebery, the second 

 Chairman was Sir John Lubbock, one of the most 

 able and highly-cultured men in the House of 

 Commons." And again, after a list given to 

 show the many talents represented in the Council, 

 he writes : "Sir John Lubbock could speak for 

 the interests of the bankers, and also for the ideas 

 of thinking men." We may, no doubt, acquit the 

 author of any malice or intention in the rather 

 charming irony which puts the " thinking men " 

 into this acute antithesis with the bankers. 



Four seats on the County Council were allotted 

 to the City of London, and for these there were 

 six candidates. The result was declared, on 

 January 18, as follows : Lubbock 8976, Rosebery 

 8032, Cohen 3925, Clarke 3622, Shaw 2752, 

 Johnson 729. The first four therefore were 

 elected, Sir John heading the poll. The first 

 meeting of the newly-formed body took place on 

 the last day of the month, when Sir John was 

 voted into the chair pro tern. He notes : "I had 



