Lubbock was born on 29 September 1928 into a staunchly Liberal family: his two grandfathers had been MPs and a Great Aunt the first president of the Women’s Liberal Federation. Educated in Canada and at Harrow, he went on to read Engineering at Balliol College, Oxford. He served in the Welsh Guards and afterwards joined Rolls Royce. He married Kina-Maria O’Kelly de Gallagh in 1953 and they had three children.
Lubbock joined the Liberal Party in 1960. After serving as a councillor for a year he stood at the Orpington by-election in March 1962, famously winning the seat in the ‘Liberal Revival’. He became the party’s Chief Whip. Lubbock sat on various bodies discussing electoral reform, pursuing Liberal positions to change the First Past the Post system. Lubbock ran for the Liberal leadership in 1967, after losing to Jeremy Thorpe he kept his position as Chief Whip until 1970.
Lubbock succeeded his cousin as 4th Baron Avebury and entered the Lords as a hereditary peer in 1971. He was a keen Human Rights activist, forming the Parliamentary Human Rights Group in 1976 which he chaired for 21 years. In 1985 he re-married (to Linsday Stewart) with whom he had a son. After reform of the Lords removed most hereditary peers in 1999, his fellow Liberal Democrats voted to keep Avebury in the Lords. He served until his death in February 2016, becoming the longest-serving Liberal Democrat peer.