The Cubitts

There were two families of Cubitts closely involved with the development of rail in Camden. The confusion between these families is compounded by leading members of the two families having the same name and both families originating from Norfolk. Thus Sir William Cubitt, the engineer, is often confused with his namesake and near contemporary who was an engineering contractor and public servant.

The Buxton Cubitt family of Jonathan Cubitt had three famous sons: Thomas born 1788, William born 1791, and Lewis born 1799.

Thomas started as a carpenter, like his father. As a master carpenter, he found he could tender for work, accept contracts and employ a wide range of specialised craftsmen and architects to work under his supervision, on an all-trades basis. Starting in around 1815, he was soon designing, laying out and building streets, squares, and whole districts.

Thomas Cubitt was responsible for many large London projects including Belgravia, Pimlico, much of Bloomsbury and the east front of Buckingham Palace. He built three thousand feet of the Thames Embankment at his own expense.  Elsewhere, he built a similarly large development in Brighton called Kemp Town, and Osborne House on the Isle of Wight which was completed in 1851.

It was not until 1850 that he satisfied a growing taste for country living. He purchased Denbies, near Dorking, Surrey and started building for himself, planting thousands of trees and modernising the farm and estate buildings. He died in 1855, soon after its completion and is buried in Norwood cemetery where his tomb, a ten-ton slab of granite covering a brick vault, is now a Grade II listed building. There is a statue of him in Dorking, close to his former Denbies estate at Ranmore overlooking the town.

Picture of William Cubitt
William Cubitt

William Cubitt started as a partner in his brother Thomas’s building firm, but over the next decade the business, based in Gray’s Inn Road, gradually became two divisions, Thomas being responsible for the speculative house-building and William for the contract work. From 1824 Lewis was also a partner and designed many of the housing developments built by Thomas. The partnership known as T. W. and L. Cubitt, or simply Messrs Cubitts, was dissolved in 1827 when William left to set up his own firm, William Cubitt & Co., retaining the Gray’s Inn Road Yard and a workforce of some 700 men, and concentrating on civil engineering contracting. Lewis first worked with Thomas and then moved in 1831 to join William. All these changes appear to have been amicable and the brothers shared the Gray’s Inn Yard.

The new partnership of William and Lewis undertook many important contracts in the 1830s. In November 1831 they tendered successfully to ‘Erect and Finish the New Buildings for Mr. Babbage’s Calculating Engine in East Street Manchester Square’.

They built much of the southern section of the London & Birmingham Railway, including the sections from Boxmoor to Tring and Euston to Camden, the portico (Euston Arch) and the original station buildings at Euston, and Camden engine shed, completed in 1837. Other contracts included the new Fishmongers’ Hall, Covent Garden Market (and other works on the Bedford estate), repairs to Westminster Bridge and rebuilding the Stock Exchange.

William was also responsible for the reclaiming and development of Cubitt Town (named after him) in the Isle of Dogs to house workers in the shipyards and docks.   In 1856 his company built Hays Wharf on the Thames river front for the Hay’s Wharf Company, the largest and most powerful of the dockside companies with property all along the river front as far as Tower Bridge.

William was Sheriff of London in 1847 and Lord Mayor in 1860-61, re-elected exceptionally in 1861-62 for a second term; MP for Andover 1847-1861 and in 1862; and Prime Master of the Fishmongers’ Company.

Picture of Lewis Cubitt
Lewis Cubitt

Lewis was an architect and civil engineer and one of the leading designers of his day. By the late 1830s, Lewis had begun to withdraw from William and Lewis Cubitt to practice solely as an architect specialising in railway work and set up his own architectural practice at 77 Great Russell Street, London.

One of his first commissions was for Pickford & Co, the largest bulk carrier of goods on the canal network, which had obtained rights of carriage and distribution on the L&BR. It built a large goods shed “twice the area of Westminster Hall” on the south side of the Regent’s Canal, designed by Lewis and built by W & L Cubitt, to facilitate transfer of goods between road, rail and canal, the first such interchange warehouse, which opened in December 1841. The shed had extensive stabling in the basement and a rail connection with the goods yard on the north bank. A few years later it was substantially enlarged.

Lewis also designed the Bricklayers Arms station (1842-44) and was jointly responsible for the rebuilt London Bridge railway station in 1844.

Appointed as architect for the southern part of the Great Northern Railway, the first buildings Lewis designed were the Temporary Passenger Station on Maiden Lane and the Granary, built in 1850-51. These were followed by King’s Cross Station built in 1851-2 and the Great Northern Hotel, built in 1854.

Picture of Sir William Cubitt
Sir William Cubitt

The Great Northern directors had met for the first time at No. 36 Great George Street, Westminster on 1 July 1846 and confirmed the appointment as Consulting Engineer of another William Cubitt, an eminent civil engineer. He had invented a type of windmill sail and the prison treadwheel, and was employed as chief engineer at Ransomes of Ipswich before moving to London, where he worked on canals, docks, and railways.

His son, Joseph Cubitt, was appointed Engineer for the southern portion of the works. He had to work closely with Lewis Cubitt the architect with whom he appears not to have been related. William Cubitt recommended his brother Benjamin as Locomotive Engineer. He was engaged in November 1846 but died little more than a year later.

Sir William Cubitt’s portrait hangs on the main staircase at the Institution of Civil Engineers, of which he was president from 1849–51. He was knighted for his role as chief engineer and one of the Commissioners of The Great Exhibition erected at Hyde Park in 1851, an exhibition with which other eminent engineers were involved, including Robert Stephenson and Isambard Kingdom Brunel.