Henry Cubitt, 4th Baron Ashcombe

Coat of arms of Baron Ashcombe

Henry Edward Cubitt, 4th Baron Ashcombe (born March 31, 1924 - † December 4, 2013 at Sudeley Castle , near Winchcombe , Gloucestershire ) was a British peer and politician ( Conservative Party ).

Life

Henry Edward Cubitt, 4th Baron Ashcombe was a descendant of the architect and builder Thomas Cubitt (1788–1855), who created important magnificent buildings in the London districts of Bloomsbury , Pimlico and Belgravia . He was born as the eldest son of Roland Calvert Cubitt, 3rd Baron Ashcombe (1899–1962) and his first wife Sonia Rosemary Keppel OBE (1900–1986). His grandmother was Alice Keppel , the last and most famous mistress of the British King Edward VII ; she died in 1947. His sister Rosalind Maud Cubitt (1921-1994) married Major Bruce Shand in January 1946. Their daughter is Camilla Parker-Bowles ; Ashcombe was thus the uncle of the Duchess of Cornwall .

With the death of his father on October 28, 1962, he inherited the title of Baron Ashcombe , as 4th Baron Ashcombe, of Dorking, Surrey and of Bodiam Castle, Sussex ( Peerage of the United Kingdom ; first awarded in 1892).

Cubitt attended Eton College . During World War II , he served in the Royal Air Force . He was stationed as a training pilot in Canada . After the end of the Second World War, he devoted himself to the management and administration of the family's wealth. At times he was on the board of over 30 companies, sometimes in connection with American and Canadian investors. He was Chairman of the family-owned construction company Holland, Hannen & Cubitts when it held a majority stake in ACI Property Corporation, which built the Le Cartier Apartments in Montreal , the tallest residential building in the Commonwealth in 1965 . In 1970, as the owner of the company CR Construction Limited, he sold the Pimlico property with 480 apartments in London's Victoria district , which he owned, to an international consortium controlled by the Hanson Trust .

In 1985 he sold his family estate in Surrey ; since then he has no longer had his own property ; as early as 1958 he had sold the Denbies family property near Dorking to the National Trust .

From 1961 to 1968 he was Consul General of the Principality of Monaco , based in London . In later years, Cubitt was Chairman of Sudeley Estes. In this capacity he was, with his third wife, for the management, renovation and reconstruction of Sudeley Castle , a medieval fortress in the Cotswolds , near Winchcombe in the English county of Gloucestershire , and place of death of Catherine Parr , the Widow of King Henry VIII of England , responsible. He built u. a. Cottages on the estate and made Sudeley Castle a tourist attraction .

He also devoted himself extensively to charitable tasks. He supported charities, including a. the Rehabilitation for Addicted Prisoners Trust (RAPt) and The Bridges , a RAPt clinic for alcohol and drug users in Hull . He had suffered from alcoholism himself for many years .

Membership in the House of Lords

With the inheritance of the title of Baron Ashcombe Cubitt became an official member of the House of Lords on October 28, 1962 , where he sat for the Conservative Party , but did not see himself as a politician. He never officially joined the Conservative faction in the House of Lords. It was not until eleven years after he began his membership that he took the oath of office in the House of Lords. His inaugural address was given on May 8, 1974, as part of a debate on oil and gas production.

He was present on average for one to two session days during the parliamentary term. In Hansard no further requests to speak or participate in votes are recorded for him. His membership in the House of Lords ended on November 11, 1999 by the House of Lords Act 1999 .

Family and private

Cubitt was married three times. On September 12, 1955, he married the American Ghislaine Dresselhuys († 2000), the daughter of Cornelius William Dresselhuys and his wife Edith Merandon du Plessis. The marriage ended in divorce in 1968. On January 1, 1973, he married Virginia Carrington, the younger daughter of Peter Carington, 6th Baron Carrington , and his wife Iona Ellen McClean; the ceremony took place in the Kensington Register Office, in the borough of Kensington in London. His second marriage ended in divorce in 1979. On March 29, 1979, he finally married the Kentucky- born American Mary Elizabeth Chipps, the daughter of Dr. Henry Davis Chipps. She was the widow of Mark Dent-Brocklehurst († 1972), a friend of Cubitts. All of his marriages were childless.

Since his marriage to his third wife, he lived at Sudeley Castle , which was shared by his second wife and their two children from their first marriage. a. belonged to his stepson Henry Dent-Brocklehurst. Cubitt died in early December 2013 at the age of 89 at his last residence, Sudeley Castle. The funeral took place on December 12, 2013; the funeral was at St Mary's Church at Sudeley Castle.

The title heir is his 2nd cousin, Mark Edward Cubitt (* 1964), a great-grandson of Henry Cubitt, 2nd Baron Ashcombe . Mark Cubitt is married and has two sons.

Web links

• Henry Cubitt at Hansard (English)
• Lord Ashcombe - Obituary in The Daily Telegraph, December 25, 2013

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c} Henry Edward Cubitt, 4th Baron Ashcombe death report in: Peerage News of December 6, 2013
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Lord Ashcombe obituary in: The Daily Telegraph, December 25, 2013
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Henry Edward Cubitt, 4th Baron Ashcombe on thepeerage.com , accessed August 20, 2015.
4. ↑ CONTINENTAL SHELF OIL AND GAS minutes of the House of Lords on May 8, 1974

predecessor	Office	successor
Roland Calvert Cubitt	Baron Ashcombe 1962-2013	Mark Edward Cubitt