Spouse(s) Laura Joyce Name George 1st Uncles Lewis Cubitt Occupation Politician Parents Thomas Cubitt | Mother Mary Anne Warner Died February 26, 1917 Role British Politician | |
 | ||
Born 4 June 1828 ( 1828-06-04 ) Children Henry Cubitt, 2nd Baron Ashcombe Grandchildren Roland Calvert Cubitt, 3rd Baron Ashcombe Similar People Roland Calvert Cubitt - 3r, Thomas Cubitt, Lewis Cubitt | ||
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.
Contents
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, in the County of Surrey and of Bodiam Castle, in the County of 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.
Death and burial
He died on 26 February 1917 and was buried in the churchyard of St Barnabas's Church, Ranmore Common, Surrey.
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:
He is the maternal great-great grandfather of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.