Thomas Cubitt

The Statue of Thomas Cubitt - The Master Builder who revolutionised the construction industry

A statue to the Victorian master builder Thomas Cubitt, who left his mark on Surrey and on London, has just been unveiled in Dorking, close to his former Denbies estate at Ranmore overlooking the town. From humble beginnings he rose to take his place alongside the most eminent of Victorian high achievers and left a legacy of elegant buildings, many of which still stand today.

Thomas Cubitt

Boom and bust in the building trade is not exactly a modern phenomenon. The Victorian builders also suffered their fair share of speculative disasters and while huge rewards were there for those prepared to risk all, most of the high flyers saw their ambitions end in bankruptcy. 
Thomas Cubitt was one of a select few who made it, held on to it and lived to enjoy it. Along the way the former ship's carpenter received the patronage and affection of royalty, revolutionised the way in which the industry was structured and earned a reputation as a generous benefactor in the finest tradition of 19th century philanthrophy.

His was perhaps not quite a rags to riches story but it came pretty close. From humble beginnings, Thomas was to die in 1856 as a millionaire, thoroughly respected, leaving a legacy of fashionable development in the smartest parts of London much of which still stands today.

Queen Victoria, for whom he built Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, was to write admiringly of him after his death: "In his sphere of life, with the immense business he had in hand, he is a real national loss. A better, kindhearted or more simple, unassuming man never breathed."

Thomas was born "the penniless son of a Coltishal farmer" in 1788 in the village of Buxton, Norfolk, one of four children. His father was a carpenter and Thomas followed in his footsteps.

On his father's death in 1806, he signed on as a captain's joiner on a ship to India. Savings from this single voyage allowed him to set up as a carpenter on his own in London.

From carpenter he rose rapidly to become builder and finally master contractor. Thomas's success was due to his then revolutionary method for the building trade of employing vast numbers of craftsmen working as a team under his control.

Today, having all the crafts and trades of a development scheme under one umbrella is taken for granted. But in the early 19th century, most buildings were constructed by different craftsmen working separately.

He was also extremely shrewd in his purchases of land at a time when the capital was undergoing a major expansion.

Thomas not only achieved a reputation for meeting deadlines on time and on budget, he was also highly respected as a fair governor by his employees during an age when the reverse was often the lot of the artisan.

Many men at the time were paid under the truck system, a fiddle whereby coin or tokens issued by the employer were only redeemable at a local pub. The publican and employer made a tidy profit on the deal while the worker got ripped off.

Thomas's men were well treated, paid fair wages and supplied with refreshments in the 19th century equivalent of tea breaks. He provided them with a library and built a school for their children.

One of the strengths of his operation was that men with the experience of the workshops staffed the office and the calibre of his foremen was extremely high.

Much of his rapidly increasing fortune he spent on philanthropic works. Money was lavished on charities, churches and schools but all the while he remained an unassuming man.

He was closely involved in schemes to solve the capital's pollution problems and improvements to the Thames embankment.

The list of his developments is impressive and the buildings are largely still in place. He was responsible for much of the northern end of Bloomsbury including Gordon Square and the west side of Tavistock Square. He built Pimlico and much of Belgravia including Eaton Square. At Albert Gate he built two great houses overlooking Hyde Park, one of which is now the French Embassy.

Thomas developed the land around Clapham Common making it, in the mid 19th century, one of south London's most fashionable areas. He developed Islington and much of Kemp Town at Brighton.

By now the foremost builder of his time, he was called on by the royal family to build the east and south wings of Buckingham Palace. With Prince Albert he first designed and built Osborne House on the Isle of Wight which was completed in 1851.

The pavilion was ready for occupation 15 months after the first stone was laid. A delighted Queen Victoria wrote: "Mr Cubitt has done it admirably. He is such an honest, kind, good man. It seems to me to be like a dream to be here now in our house."

Thomas or his brother Lewis designed most of the buildings that his firm constructed and it was Lewis who was considered the more architecturally talented.

In the 1820s Thomas was commissioned to build a new house at Polesden Lacey for Joseph Bonsor, a successful City stationer and bookseller, for £7,600. He was captivated by the Surrey Hills and 25 years later bought the neighbouring estate of Denbies which he set about rebuilding.

He manufactured his own bricks for the construction of his mansion. The grounds were planted with thousands of trees and rare plants from Kew Gardens supervised by the landscape architect who had laid out St James's Park and the forecourt of Buckingham Palace.

The resemblances between Osborne and Denbies was so great that it was widely rumoured the house was designed as a hunting lodge for the Prince of Wales. Thomas was persuaded to deny the story in the columns of the Builder.

Barely had he settled in to his dream home than he died there at the age of 68 in the great bedroom surrounded by his children. He chose to be buried at Norwood.

His son George, who married Laura Joyce, daughter of the vicar of Dorking, initially against his father's wishes, inherited his fortune and in 1892 became the first Lord Ashcombe. It was George who built St Barnabas Church close to Denbies on the North Downs Way in 1858.

While much of Thomas's building in London and elsewhere still stands, sadly his own home did not. Like many of the big local houses, Denbies was used to billet troops during the last war.

Most suffered as a result and the social climate after the war was no longer suited to mansions in the country which had anyway become too costly for all but the super rich to maintain.

Denbies was demolished in 1953 and a smaller villa with the same name took its place. The estate was sold by the Ashcombe family in 1984 to Dorking businessman Adrian White who still lives there and established the winery bearing the Denbies name.

Thomas's great grandson Sir Hugh Cubitt still lives locally, at Westhumble, and was with Mr White when the bronze status to his illustrious ancestor was unveiled outside the Mole Valley Council offices.

It is one of two created by the artist William Fawke commissioned in 1996 by the Thomas Cubitt Memorial Fund. One stands in Pimlico overlooking a builder's yard once occupied by Thomas.

The other second casting was bought by Mr White who donated it to Dorking. It depicts Thomas holding a brick measure and standing on a platform as though he was supervising a building site.

Ironically perhaps, the great master builder whose foresight revolutionised his industry has his back turned against the high ground where his old home once stood. - writes Chris Porter, The Surrey Advertiser