Lubbock was not unusual in this regard. Like Darwin, Boucher de Perthes, Benjamin Franklin, Adam Smith, Aristotle, and even the frenetic Frederick Winslow Taylor, Lubbock’s most important achievements were only possible because he was wealthy enough to afford to do exactly what he wanted to. If he’d had to work the same hours as the staff who maintained High Elms or the thousands of men, women, and children laboring on farms and in the factories, he wouldn’t have had the influence to push the Bank Holiday Act through Parliament, nor the time or energy to study archaeology, play sports, or
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