Thomas Cubitt by William Fawke (1955).
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The three well-known Cubitt brothers, Thomas, William and Lewis, were born in Norfolk as the sons of a carpenter — although the evidence for this has been questioned, it is confirmed in a bankruptcy notice about their father dated 9 February 1793 (see "Thomas Cubitt" in the OLBC entry). There is certainly some evidence that Thomas himself did train as a carpenter, sailing to India in the winter of 1806/7 as a ship's carpenter, and returning to set up business in 1811 in Eagle Street in Holborn. That was the start of a steady rise, facilitated until 1827 by family partnerships with his younger brothers, William and Lewis.
Thomas stands out for his extraordinary amount of energy, organizational skill, dedication to his men, and high principles. His reputation for integrity and dependability was impeccable. By the mid-twenties, he was active not only in Belgravia but "in almost every other expanding metropolitan district" (White 75). At his vast works on his own stretch of the Embankment he brought together every branch of the building trade — a truly pioneering arrangement — and provided them with all the latest equipment and facilities, including a reading room and a lending library; he even arranged evening classes for his apprentices. Later he developed a new, equally state-of-the-art works site at Aylesford in Kent as well. By now he was a close friend of the royal family, having collaborated with Prince Albert on the design for Osborne House, which he then built for him. He also won the contract to extend Buckingham Palace, and it was Thomas as well who orchestrated the dismantling of Nash's Marble Arch there, and its reassembly at Hyde Park, ready for the Great Exhibition. The Exhibition itself was a project suggested to Prince Albert by Thomas, after a conversation with a friend who had recently visited an exhibition in Paris (Halliday 77). From 1839 Thomas was an active member of the Institution of Civil Engineers; he was a leading figure in the campaigns for a main drainage system and a more extensive Thames Embankment, and rooted for limiting smoke emissions and conserving open space: Battersea Park owes its existence largely to him.
Thomas Cubitt had a good reputation in literary circles, too. For example, having built much of Tavistock Square in the twenties, his firm later extended Tavistock House for Dickens. In Chelsea, another area in which he had been active earlier, his men put in a soundproof study at the top of Carlyle's house. Both authors expressed themselves delighted with the work. Carlyle is on record as having met the eldest Cubitt socially, describing him in his journal for 24 July 1850 as "a hoary modest sensible-looking man" (Carlyle Letters, n.6).
The great builder's best-regarded development is Eaton Square, Belgravia; but it is really the scale of his work that astounds: "Pimlico and Clapham, terrace after terrace and square after square, were later ventures in which Cubitt improved upon all the speculative building which had ever been done before, or, one supposes, will ever be done again" (Turnor 21). The lay-outs of these areas, sometimes on the immediate and unattractive flood plain of the Thames, were themselves highly influential.
Like so many of his peers, Thomas finally built himself a country house in Surrey, on the land now occupied by Denbies Vineyard, Dorking. Prince Albert visited him there. Although the house has since been replaced, its owner is commemorated nearby, on the main road into the town, by a statue to match the one near his old London works in Pimlico. Looking rather dapper, he is shown standing on a raised platform behind a partially uncovered stack of bricks, with a brick measure in his hand, as if checking his materials. The wording on the plaque is: "Thomas Cubitt — MasterBuilder. Born 1788 — Died 1855 at 'Denbies', Dorking. 'A GREAT BUILDER AND A GOOD MAN.'" Probably the latter accolade would have pleased him as much as the former.
Thomas was survived by both his brothers, who had remained in partnership together until 1830 and who had undoubtedly co-operated with each other and their elder brother after that as well. While Thomas had been busily engaged with work in the Euston area, for instance, his brothers had been "responsible for the building of Philip Hardwick’s magnificent portico and the original station buildings in 1836-9, the locomotive shed at Camden Town, and part of the permanent way, and some of the country stations, in the 1830s, and in the following decade they built the Great Hall, one of the most important contemporary railway buildings — also to Hardwick's designs (Hobhouse 73). Lewis, however, is best known as the architect who designed London's King's Cross Station, opened in 1852; and William, for his public works: he entered politics while still pursuing his own very successful building career, became a long-serving MP for Andover in Hampshire in 1847, giving up his building work completely in 1851, and becoming Lord Mayor of London for two successive terms, in 1860-61 and 1861-62. It is heartening to read that "[h]is mayoralty was remembered for the warm-hearted way in which he organised a relief fund for the Lancashire cotton workers thrown out of work by the American civil war" (Hobhouse 102).
Thomas Cubitt was also survived by his wife and seven of his twelve children (see Hobhouse 256). One of his sons became an MP for Surrey, and a Baron. Cubitt's great-grandson, Sir Hugh Cubitt, still lives locally and was present in 2000 for the formal unveiling of the statue.
Links to Related Material
Bibliography
Carlyle, Thomas.Collected Letters, Vol. 25. Online ed. Web. 15 August 2008.
Halliday, Stephen. Making the Metropolis: Creators of Victorian London. Derby: Breedon, 2003.
"History of Tavistock Square" (Camden local government site). Web. 15 August 2008.
Hobhouse, Hermione. Thomas Cubitt, Master-Builder. New York: Universe Books, 1971.
"Thomas Cubitt." Mole Valley Online. Web. 15 August 2008.
"Thomas Cubitt." OLBC (Oxford and London Building Company). Web. 6 July 2025. This site very usefully reproduces and explains historic records. https://www.olbc.co.uk/thomas-cubitt-from-his-own-records/"
Turnor, Reginald. Nineteenth Century Architecture in Britain. London: Batsford, 1950.
White, Jerry. London in the Nineteenth Century: "A Human Awful Wonder of God." London: Cape, 2007.
Last modified 6 July 2025