Lubbock
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
SIR JOHN, an English archæologist, naturalist and politician; born in London, England, April 30, 1834. He joined his father's banking business in 1848; became a partner in 1856; entered Parliament in 1870 as member for Maidstone; after 1880 represented London University. He was a recognized authority on financial and educational questions. He was also distinguished as a man of science, being author of " Prehistoric Times "; " Origin of Civilization "; " Origin and Metamorphoses of Insects "; " British Wild Flowers in their Relation to Insects "; " Ants, Bees and Wasps "; "The Origin of Civilization and the Primitive Condition of Man"; "Buds and Stipules" (1898); "Marriage, Totemism and Religion" (1909). He died in 1913. LÜBECK (lü'bek), a free city and state of Germany, on the Trave, about 10 miles from Travemünde, at its mouth in the Gulf of Lübeck, in the Baltic, 36 miles N. E. of Hamburg; lat. 53° 52′ N., lon. 10° 45′ 5" E.; area of state, 115 square miles; pop. about 100,000; the land is very productive; chief industry, cattle raising. The city is built on a ridge between the Trave and the Wakenitz; environs well wooded, and enlivened with cheerful villas; streets wide, the houses generally old, built of stone, and with their gable ends toward the street, are generally lofty, six or seven stories being quite common; has schools of surgery, navigation, etc., public library of 130,000 volumes. Prior to the World War Lübeck had large commercial interests, chiefly with the north and west of Europe. Its date of foundation is uncertain, but it existed in 1140, was ceded to the dukes of Saxony in 1158, taken by the Danes in 1201; was made a free imperial eity in 1226, when the Danish garrison was expelled; became the head of the Hanseatic League in 1241. The dissolution of the League marked the epoch of its decline. It was annexed to the empire in 1810, and regained its freedom after the battle of Leipsic in 1813.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's still called him "Sir John" in 1921, though he had been raised to the peerage as Baron Avebury in 1900; his lasting monuments are the Bank Holidays Act of 1871 and the words "Palaeolithic" and "Neolithic", which he coined in "Prehistoric Times" (1865) and which archaeologists still use, even as his confident ranking of living peoples as survivals of earlier human stages has been abandoned. Lübeck's status has changed more sharply: the "free city and state" of 100,000 people lost its independence in 1937, when Nazi legislation folded it into Prussia, and it now belongs to the Land of Schleswig-Holstein with roughly 215,000 inhabitants. The old gabled houses Collier's admired were badly hit by an RAF raid in March 1942, but the rebuilt medieval core, with the Holstentor, was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1987. Readers today may also expect Lubbock, Texas — unmentioned here, and now a city of over a quarter of a million, home of Texas Tech University and birthplace of Buddy Holly.
Written for this edition, 2026.