George Cubitt, 1st Baron Ashcombe

The 1st Baron Ashcombe
George Cubitt
Spouse(s)	Laura Joyce
Father	Thomas Cubitt
Mother	Mary Anne Warner
Born	(1828-06-04)4 June 1828
Died
Occupation	Politician

George Cubitt, 1st Baron Ashcombe PC (4 June 1828 – 26 February 1917) was a British politician and peer, the son of Thomas Cubitt, the leading London builder and property developer of his day.

Education and career

Cubitt was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated with first a BA and later took his honorary MA. He served as Conservative Party Member of Parliament for West Surrey from 1860 to 1885, and then for Epsom until 1892, when elevated to the Lords as Baron Ashcombe of Dorking, Surrey and of Bodiam Castle, Sussex, having been invested as a Privy Counsellor in 1880. He also served as Honorary Colonel of the 5th Battalion, Royal West Surrey Regiment, and Deputy Lieutenant of the counties of both Surrey and Middlesex.

Denbies, a large estate in Dorking, was part of the inheritance from his father; Cubitt lived in the mansion built by his father there until 1905. Cubitt purchased his estate in Bodiam, East Sussex, from local farmer Thomas Levett, descendant of an old Sussex family and owner of Court Lodge Farm, for £1,039 on 4 August 1862.

While an MP for West Surrey, Cubitt and his wife Lady Laura were one of the founders and benefactors of St Catherine's School in Bramley, Surrey in 1885. One of the schoolhouses was named in his honour after his death. His wife's gift to the school was a Sanatorium, which cared for sick pupils. A stained glassed window in the school chapel, dedicated to St Cecilia, was created by Cubitt in remembrance of his wife after she died in 1904. The patron of the school is Cubitt's great-great granddaughter Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.

Family

Cubitt married Laura Joyce, daughter of Rev. James Joyce, Vicar of Dorking, on 14 June 1853 and with her had 9 children; 3 sons, though only the third, Henry, survived beyond infancy, and 6 daughters, one of whom died in infancy:

• Geoffrey George Cubitt (born 31 May 1854, died 6 June 1855)
• Thomas Edmund Wilfred Cubitt (born 5 August 1859, died 17 May 1865)
• Henry Cubitt (born 14 March 1867, died 27 October 1947) - succeeded his father as the 2nd Baron Ashcombe
• Helen Laura Cubitt (died 16 August 1939)
• Mary Agnes Cubitt (died 6 February 1944) - married Rev Edward Arthur Chichester
• Adelaide Laura Cubitt (died 3 November 1922) - married Richard Anthony Fuller-Maitland
• Mildred Sophia Cubitt (died 9 March 1930) - married George William Tallents
• Mabel Georgina Cubitt (died 5 November 1865)
• Beatrice Hayward Cubitt (died 12 February 1963) - married William Archibald Calvert

He is the maternal great-great grandfather of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.

Death and burial

He died on 26 February 1917 and was buried in the churchyard of St Barnabas Church, Ranmore Common, Surrey.

File:George Cubitt funerary monument.jpg

George Cubitt funerary monument, St Barnabas Church, Ranmore Common, Surrey

References

• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages
• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by George Cubitt

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Henry Drummond John Ivatt Briscoe	Member of Parliament for West Surrey 1860–1885 With: John Ivatt Briscoe, to 1870 Lee Steere, 1870–1880 William St John Fremantle Brodrick, 1880–1885	Constituency abolished
New constituency	Member of Parliament for Epsom 1885–1892	Succeeded by Sir Thomas Townsend Bucknill
Peerage of the United Kingdom
New creation	Baron Ashcombe 1892–1917	Succeeded by Henry Cubitt