Eric Lubbock interview at the National Liberal Club, January 2015
Eric Reginald Lubbock, 4th Baron Avebury (29 September 1928 – 14 February 2016), was an English politician and human rights campaigner. He served as the LiberalMember of Parliament for Orpington from 1962 to 1970. He then served in the House of Lords, having inherited the title of Baron Avebury in 1971, until his death. In 1999, when most hereditary peers were removed from the House of Lords, he was elected by his fellow Liberal Democrats to remain. When he died, he was the longest serving Liberal Democrat peer.
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).[1]
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,[2] a swing of nearly 22% from the Conservatives. At the time, the victory was seen as a revival of the Liberal Party, and brought the number of Liberal MPs to seven.[2][3] Lubbock was dubbed "Orpington Man".[4] 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 during the period of Harold Wilson's Labour government.
Lubbock held Orpington in 1964 and 1966, both times against Guinness World Records founder Norris McWhirter. "When I beat McWhirter for the second time in 1966", Lubbock said in 2015,[5] "he said at the count that he now realised that the people in Orpington were only interested in their back gardens. And I was very pleased by that because it confirmed my attempts to look after people's local concerns."
As the MP for Orpington, Lubbock was appointed Chief Whip by Jo Grimond in 1963, a post he held until 1970. When Grimond resigned as party leader in 1967, Lubbock was one of the three Liberal MPs who stood for the position. Jeremy Thorpe won the contest with six votes, with Emlyn Hooson and Lubbock getting three apiece.[1]
As the only Liberal on the Speaker's Conference on Electoral Reform from 1963 to 1965, he attempted to reduce the voting age to 18 and to introduce the Single Transferable Vote system of Proportional Representation for general elections.[6]
Lubbock initiated the Caravan Sites Act 1968 as a Private member's bill, which mandated that councils assess and provide for the needs of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people passing through their boroughs, in order to provide unused land for them to camp on. 324 sites were created in all, but many councils "delayed, minimized or completely avoided provision of the sites for Gypsies in England." The perceived ineffectiveness of the Act led to its repeal by the Conservative government in 1994.[7]
In the Commons, Lubbock was on the Speaker's Commission on Electoral Law (1964–1966), and proposed STV in multi-member constituencies, only to be voted down by 18–1. He also proposed reducing the voting age to 18, and 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" (it is sometimes reported he said "the bloody fools").[1]
The following year, John Lubbock, 3rd Baron Avebury, died without a male heir and Eric Lubbock, his cousin, succeeded him. As Baron Avebury, he sat on the Royal Commission on Standards of Conduct in Public Life (1974–1976), and was Liberal Spokesman on Immigration and Race Relations (1971–1983). 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.[1]
In 1974, Avebury was asked by Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe to lead the Liberal general election campaign that year.[8]
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." Bill Wadman-Taylor, manager of the home, said: "I am sure there is a lot of nutritional value in the noble Lord and the dogs are not fussy, but we just couldn't do it."[6] On being advised that the dogs would probably accept but the home's management wouldn't, he made the same offer to the cats.[9]
He was a member of the Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs Team, speaking on conflict resolution and human rights.[1]
Human rights
In a 2014 Huffington Post article, Avebury noted that "When I founded the Parliamentary Human Rights group in 1976, I hoped to work with recently independent countries to promote the UN's treaties on civil and political rights."[10] He chaired the group until 1997 and served as Vice-chair until his death, along with the Labour MP and former leader, Jeremy Corbyn.[11][12] Following Avebury's death, Corbyn described him as a "Great friend, brave and determined human rights campaigner who dedicated his life to rights of all."[13]
Avebury visited Eastern Turkey, Syria and Iraq during the 1990s on fact-finding missions to investigate human rights abuses against the Kurdish minority groups in those countries. Subsequent reports published by the Parliamentary Human Rights Group resulted in a ten-year ban from entering Turkey.[15][16] He was also banned from entering Kashmir and East Timor.[17]
While banned from Turkey, Avebury campaigned against the involvement of UK construction company Balfour Beatty in the Ilisu Dam project in Turkey's Kurdish region,[18] appearing on the Mark Thomas Comedy Product in 2001 to talk about the issue.[19] In another episode of Thomas' series, he described Avebury as "the one Lord of any use and relevance" when describing how they met at a House of Lords meeting on Kurdish rights in Turkey.[20]
He was President of the Peru Support Group, campaigning on human rights issues in Peru, and a Patron of Peace Brigades International, meeting with South American human rights defenders and raising their cases in Parliament.[21] He 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.
Lord Avebury in his office at his home in South London in 2014
In 1964 he sought a review of the Timothy Evans case. Evans was subsequently granted a posthumous pardon.[9]
In recognition of his lifetime human rights work, Lubbock was made the inaugural recipient of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Peace Prize at the National Peace Symposium hosted at the Baitul Futuh Mosque in South London in 2009.[22]
Writing for Travellers' Times, the writer and artist Damian Le Bas noted Avebury's 50-year commitment to improving the lives of the Gypsy, Roma, Traveller community in the UK, calling him "one of the greatest friends the Travellers ever had."[23]
Avebury was a board member of the Gulf Center for Human Rights. Its chairperson, Maryam Alkhawaja, noted on his death that "Lord Eric Avebury supported Bahraini activists when no one else would, and continued to support the next generation of activists throughout the years. He died on the fifth anniversary of the Bahraini uprising, and I know that many of us will carry his memory with us throughout the struggle."[24]
As a backbench Liberal Democrat peer in the House of Lords during the 2010–2015 parliament, he repeatedly voted against his own party on issues like the Bedroom Tax, which he opposed,[25] and cuts to Legal Aid.[15]
The Dictionary of Liberal Biography called Avebury "a scourge of tyrants in Central and South America, Asia and Africa", noting that he had been detained twice while pursuing human rights causes in Sri Lanka and Guyana.[26]
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 to 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.[27]
Personal life
Lubbock married twice:
Kina-Maria O'Kelly de Gallagh (married 2 September 1953; divorced 1983)
Lubbock was a boxer at Oxford and a boxing blue, he was also the president of Orpington Boxing Club and competed for the club in a charity bout to raise funds for the club.[30][verification needed]
He died at his home in London on 14 February 2016 from myelofibrosis.[1][31] He is buried near St. Giles Church, Farnborough, near Orpington, Kent.[32]
William Thomas Rodgers, Baron Rodgers of Quarry Bank, is a British politician and life peer. As a Labour Party member of Parliament, he served as Secretary of State for Transport from 1976 to 1979, and was one of the "Gang of Four" of senior Labour politicians who defected to form the Social Democratic Party (SDP). He subsequently helped to lead the SDP into the merger that formed the Liberal Democrats in 1988, and later served as the party's leader in the House of Lords between 1997 and 2001.
John Archibald Sinclair, 3rd Viscount Thurso, known also as John Thurso, is a Scottish businessman, Liberal Democrat politician and hereditary peer who is notable for having served in the House of Lords both before and after a period in the House of Commons.
John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury, known as Sir John Lubbock, 4th Baronet, from 1865 until 1900, was an English banker, Liberal politician, philanthropist, scientist and polymath. Lubbock worked in his family company as a banker but made significant contributions in archaeology, ethnography, and several branches of biology. He coined the terms "Palaeolithic" and "Neolithic" to denote the Old and New Stone Ages, respectively. He helped establish archaeology as a scientific discipline, and was influential in debates concerning evolutionary theory. He introduced the first law for the protection of the UK's archaeological and architectural heritage. He promoted the establishment of public libraries and was also a founding member of the X Club.
Alan James Beith, Baron Beith, is a British Liberal Democrat politician who represented Berwick-upon-Tweed as its Member of Parliament (MP) from 1973 to 2015.
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David Patrick Paul Alton, Baron Alton of Liverpool, KCSG, KCMCO is a British-Irish politician, formerly a Member of Parliament for the Liberal Party and later Liberal Democrat who has sat as a crossbench member of the House of Lords since 1997 when he was made a life peer. Alton is also known for his human rights work including the co-founding of Jubilee Action, the children's charity, and serves as chair, patron or trustee of several charities and voluntary organisations.
Baron Avebury, of Avebury in the County of Wiltshire, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created 22 January 1900 for the banker, politician and archaeologist Sir John Lubbock, 4th Baronet. He was succeeded by his eldest son, the second Baron. On his death the titles passed to his nephew, the third Baron. He was the son of Harold Fox Pitt Lubbock, fourth son of the first Baron, who died in 1971. The title then passed to the third Baron's first cousin, the fourth Baron, the son of Maurice Fox Pitt Lubbock, sixth son of the first Baron. The fourth baron was a Liberal Democrat politician and one of the ninety excepted hereditary peers who remained in the House of Lords after the passing of the House of Lords Act 1999. He was succeeded by his son, the fifth Baron, in 2016.
Dick Taverne, Baron Taverne, is a British politician and life peer who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Lincoln from 1962 to 1974. A member of the Liberal Democrats, he was a Labour MP until his deselection in 1972, following which he resigned his seat and won the subsequent by-election in 1973 as a Democratic Labour candidate.
Colin Michael Maurice Cashman, Baron Cashman, is a British actor, dancer, politician, and LGBT rights activist. A member of the Labour Party, he served as a Member of the European Parliament for the West Midlands from 1999 to 2014. He has been a member of the House of Lords since 2014. He is a patron of Humanists UK.
Downe, formerly Down, is a village in Greater London, England, located within the London Borough of Bromley, which formed part of the historical county of Kent until 1965, and is beyond London's contiguous urban area. Charles Darwin lived in Down House for forty years until his death in 1882.
Alfred Dubs, Baron Dubs is a British Labour politician and former Member of Parliament.
Dominic Bryce Hubbard, 6th Baron Addington, is a British Liberal Democrat politician, the president of the British Dyslexic Association and the vice-president of the UK Sports Association.
Anthony Paul Lester, Baron Lester of Herne Hill, QC was a British barrister and member of the House of Lords. He was at different times a member of the Labour Party, Social Democratic Party and the Liberal Democrats. Lester was best known for his influence on race relations legislation in the United Kingdom and as a founder-member of groups such as the Institute of Race Relations, the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination and the Runnymede Trust. Lester was also a prominent figure in promoting birth control and abortion through the Family Planning Association, particularly in Northern Ireland.
John Lubbock, 3rd Baron Avebury, was an English hereditary peer and member of the House of Lords.
William Howard Goodhart, Baron Goodhart, was a British Liberal Democrat politician, a leading property and human rights lawyer, and a member of the House of Lords.
The Orpington by-election in 1962 is often described as the start of the Liberal Party revival in the United Kingdom.
Andrew Wyndham Phillips, Baron Phillips of Sudbury, was a British solicitor and Liberal Democrat politician.
Lubbock is an English surname. Notable persons with that surname include:
Lyulph Ambrose Jonathan Lubbock, 5th Baron Avebury, is a British hereditary peer. He is the first son of the 4th Lord Avebury and Kina-Maria O'Kelly. He succeeded to the title of Baron Avebury upon his father's death on 14 February 2016.
The APPG for Human Rights, alternatively known as the Parliamentary Human Rights Group (PHRG) is a group within the Parliament of the United Kingdom consisting of members from all political parties. Its role is to promote and facilitate human rights work by politicians who usually spend most of their time dealing with matters that affect their local constituency.
↑ Haigh, Nigel (2016). EU Environmental Policy, Its Journey to Centre Stage. Abingdon, Oxford: Routledge. pp.29–44. ISBN978-1-138-89031-2. 'The European Environmental Bureau suggested none in its manifesto for the 1979 elections that called for amendment of Article 2 even if one of its members, the Conservation Society, had proposed the following words for Article 2: "the highest quality of living conditions for all the people within the Community that are consonant with the paramount need, having regard to the interests of succeeding generations, to conserve the natural resources and the environment."'
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