Shire Lane, Farnborough, and its gardens, were laid out as a country estate with 30 employees. Charles Darwin moved to nearby Down House in 1842, six years after returning from his voyage in the Beagle and it was through him that Lubbock acquired a love of nature and science. Darwin encouraged his studies, persuading Lubbock’s father to give the boy a microscope. After Eton, Lubbock was taken into the bank – Robarts, Lubbock & Co which later amalgamated with Coutts & Co – and made a partner at the age of 22. At the age of 24 he drafted the country clearing system which made it possible for cheques to be drawn in one bank and processed by another without charge. His interests included geology, archaeology, anthropology and botany and he was the first archaeologist to divide the Stone Age into the Palaeolithic and Neolithic periods. Lubbock became an author – with works on the behaviour of ants and on anthropology - scientist and the president of 25 learned societies and commercial organisations. In recognition, he received honorary degrees from Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Dublin, St Andrew’s and Wurzburg Universities. Sir John’s stated aim in Parliament was: “To promote the study of science, both in secondary and primary schools, to quicken the repayment of the National Debt, and to secure some additional holidays and shorten the hours of labour in the shops.” He brought to the House of Commons a happy combination of a leading banker and social reformer. Bank employees at that time were the aristocracy of the clerical world, working about 48 hours per week as opposed to the 60-plus of most office staff. In the 16th century there were 58 saints’ days in the English calendar but the law gave the lords of the manor power to over-ride these when they required their labourers to work. Later, the Bank of England had observed some 33 saints’ days and religious festivals as holidays but in 1834 this was reduced to just four: 1 May, 1 November, Good Friday and Christmas Day. The first legislation relating to Bank Holidays was passed with cross-party support when Sir John introduced the Bank Holidays Act of 25 May 1871. It regulated public holidays: Easter Monday, Whit Monday, August Bank Holiday Monday (the first Monday in August) and Boxing Day by statute. Good Friday and Christmas Day, which, because of common observance had been customary holidays since before records began, were classed as common law holidays. Thus four extra days were added to those on which cheques and bills would not be paid by the banks – and because the banks were not open it followed that most other businesses were unlikely to operate. Cricket was an obvious beneficiary – a thought probably not far from Sir John’s mind when he began drawing up the bill. He was the eldest of eight brothers, three of whom played first-class cricket – Nevile, the third son, Alfred the seventh and Edgar, the eighth, with a distant cousin. CWS Lubbock, playing for Northamptonshire in 1938-39. Lubbock was firmly of the belief that bank employees should have the opportunity to attend or take part in matches when they were scheduled. So Easter Monday, Whit Monday and the first Monday in August dovetailed with the dates when matches were traditionally played between the villages in the region where he was raised. It was cleverly done. “If we had called our Bill the General Holiday Bill or the National Holiday Bill I doubt not it would have been opposed,” he said. Instead, a move designed to benefit the British worker succeeded in its passage through Parliament by being disguised as an initiative to help the banking industry. In Scotland, the 1871 Act established NewYear’s Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, first Monday in May, first Monday in August and Christmas Day as Bank Holidays. St Lubbock’s Day 19