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THOMAS CUBITT (1788-1855)

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Originally appearing in Volume V07, Page 607 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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THOMAS CUBITT (1788-1855)  ,
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English builder, was born at Buxton, near Norwich, on the 25th of
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February 1788 . Few men have exhibited greater self-reliance in early
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life in the pursuit of a successful career . In his nineteenth
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year, when he was working as a journeyman carpenter, his
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father died, and he tried to better his position by going on a voyage to India, as captain's joiner . He returned to
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London, two years after, in the possession of a small capital, and began business as a carpenter . The growth of his establishment was steady and rapid . He was one of the first to combine several trades in a ",builder's " business; and this very much increased his success . One of the earlier
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works which gave him reputation was the London Institution in Fins-bury Circus; but it is from 1824 that the vast
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building operations date which identify his name with many splendid ranges of London houses, such as
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Tavistock,Gordon, Belgrave and Lowndes Squares, and the
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district of South Belgravia . While these and similar extensive operations were in progress, a
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financial panic, which proved ruinous to many, was surmounted in his case by a determined spirit and his integrity of character . He took
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great
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interest in sanitary
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measures, and published, for private circulation, a pamphlet on the general drainage of London, the substance of which was afterwards embodied in a letter to The Times; the plan he advocated was subsequently adopted by the
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conveyance of the sewage
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matter some distance below London . He advocated the provision of open spaces in the environs of London as places of public recreation, and was one of the originators of
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Battersea Park, the first of the
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people's parks . At a
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late period he received professionally the recognition of royalty, the palace at
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Osborne being erected after his designs, and under his superintendence; and in the Life of the Prince Consort he is described by Queen Victoria as one " than whom a better and kinder man did not exist." In 1851, although he was not identified with the management of the Great
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Exhibition, he showed the warmest sympathy with its
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objects, and aided its projectors in many ways, especially in the profitable investment of their surplus funds . Cubitt, when he rose to be a capitalist, never forgot the interests and well-being of his workpeople .

He was elected

president of the Builders' Society some time before his
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death, which took place at his seat Denbies, near
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Dorking, on the loth of December 1855• His son, George Cubitt (1828- ), who had a long and useful
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parliamentary career, as Conservative member for West Surrey (1860-1865) and
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Mid-Surrey (1885-1892), was in 1892 raised to the peerage as Baron Ashcombe .

End of Article: THOMAS CUBITT (1788-1855)
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CUCHULINN (Cuchuinn; pronounced " Coohoollin ")

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