Arthur Benison Hubback

Arthur Benison Hubback
(A. B. Hubback)
Born Arthur Benison Hubback (A. B. Hubback)
(1871-04-13)13 April 1871
74, Rodney Street, Liverpool, England
Died 8 May 1948(1948-05-08) (aged 77)
4 The Hollies, Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, England
Nationality British
Occupation Architect

Arthur Benison Hubback (13 April 1871 – 8 May 1948) was a British architect and soldier who designed several important buildings in British Malaya. He was active in sports, especially football and cricket.[1] Hubback was promoted to Brigadier General during his service in the British Army.[2]

Early life

Arthur Hubback was born in Liverpool, England, in 1871, son of Joseph Hubback (1814–1882), who was Lord Mayor of Liverpool in 1870 and a merchant, and Georgina (born Eliott-Lockhart). Arthur attended Fettes College, Edinburgh, and then started work for the city architect in Liverpool.[3]

Malaya

In 1895, Hubback became chief draughtsman of Selangor public works department, which was then working on the government offices that are now Sultan Abdul Samad Building. After work on the building was finished in 1897, he worked in private practice for a few years, returning to public work in 1901. From then until the outbreak of World War I was a period of great construction projects, and he worked on buildings in Malaya and Hong Kong, from mosques to railway stations.[3]

Military service

Hubback took charge in the Federated Malay States Volunteer Rifles Force (M.S.V.R.) in 1907. He was appointed as a Major in the M.S.V.R. in 1910 and he was in command of F.M.S. Contingent to George V's coronation in 1911. He was then promoted as Lt. Colonel in the M.S.V.R. in 1912. In 1914, at the start of World War I, he became a major in the 19th battalion, London (territorial) regiment. In 1915, he was the Lt. Colonel commanding the 20th London Regiment Territorial Force, 47th Division B.E.F. He served in France, The Soanne, Brigadier of 19th and 20th London Battalion.He became Brigadier General of 2nd Infantry Brigade, 1st Division in 1916, and Brigadier General Co. of the 63rd Infantry Brigade, 37th Division B.E.F. in 1918. During the war he was mentioned in dispatches six times, and won the CMG and Distinguished Service Order. Following the war he continued in the military, commanding the 5th London infantry brigade of the territorial army from 1920 to 1924.[3]

Family

Hubback married Margaret Rose Frances (Daisy) Voules, the sister of a colleague, in 1901 and they had two children, a son (Arthur Gordon VoulesHubback, R.N.) and a daughter (Yvonne Hubback).[3]

He had two brothers. Theodore Rathbone Hubback (1872–1944?) joined Arthur in Malaya, and was a civil engineer and contractor, as well as working for a while as a rubber planter, and after early adventures as a big game hunter became a conservationist and author. George Clay Hubback (1882–1955) was bishop of Assam and of Calcutta.

He died in Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, on 8 May 1948 of heart failure.[3]

Buildings

Hubback worked on the buildings including:

Source Included From: A.B Hubback: An Architectural Celebration in Malaya Exhibition. Located at National Textile Museum, Kuala Lumpur.
Jointly Organized by PAM Heritage Conservation Committee, Department of Museums Malaysia and National Textile Museum Officially Supported by Masjid Jamek, British Council, Arch, webmaster of thehubbacks.org, midor, ALFO, MIBOUTIQUE and Kuala Lumpur.

Honours

Sports

Hubback play the following sport:[19]

The significance of Hubback’s work

Hubback’s architectural work, on the one hand, is rooted in 19th-century eclectic historicism. He took Mughal forms and melded them with Byzantine, Romanesque, and Gothic details to form a ‘new’ kind of architecture known as Indo-Saracenic. Hubback was following in the design direction set by his predecessor A.C.A. Norman.[20] This strand of English colonial architecture was based on Indian Islamic architecture, although it was not really authentic to either place, India or Malaya. Hubback crafted his designs in Malaya a few years before Edwin Lutyens created his for New Delhi. Hubback effectively introduced into the Malaysian architectural vocabulary the onion dome. His principal building formed the perimeter of the Padang or Merdeka Square, and became a symbol of the colonial administration. The Federal Secretariat/Sultan Abdul Samad Building is as much a part of the architectural consciousness of Malaysia as the Houses of Parliament is to Britain.[21]

The twentieth-century quality of his architectural output is that he created a number of large buildings to house the colonial government's administrative functions, an architectural recognition of the increasing spatial demands of an official bureaucracy, although in exceedingly elegant dress. While in post-independence Malaysia these functions have moved elsewhere, the buildings remain as a potent visual symbol of the country and its multicultural heritage.

References

  1. ↑ "Kuala Lumpur Sports". The Straits Times. 7 February 1902. Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  2. ↑ "Untitled". The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser. 13 October 1917. Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Gullick, J.M. (2007). "Hubback, Arthur Benison". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved 17 February 2014.
  4. ↑ "Sanitary Board/Town Hall, Raja Road, Kuala Lumpur, Selangor". flickr. Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  5. ↑ "Former FMS Railways Central Offices". warisan peliharaan. Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  6. ↑ "Market Square (Medan Pasar) Shophouses (Sin Seng Nam Restaurant), Kuala Lumpur, Selangor". flickr. Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  7. ↑ "Wisma Kastam (Malayan Railway Building)". penang travel trips. Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  8. ↑ "Untitled". The Victorian Web. Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  9. ↑ Demissie, Fassil (2012). Colonial Architecture and Urbanism in Africa. p. 98.
  10. ↑ "Malay College (MCKK) – Malay Residential School, Kuala Kangsar, Perak". flikr. Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  11. ↑ "About Us". Galeri di Raja. Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  12. ↑ "ANDERSON SCHOOL – IPOH, PERAK". The Hubback Brothers Tribute. Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  13. ↑ Middleton, William D. (2012). On Railways Far Away. Indiana UP. p. 236.
  14. ↑ "Patients' Activities in the Central Mental Hospital (Hospital Bahagia Ulu Kinta), Tanjung Rambutan". Ipoh World. Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  15. ↑ "Thursday October 18, 2007 White House becomes Royal Gallery". The Star Online. Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  16. 1 2 3 "Brigadier General Arthur Benison Hubback – Empire Builder". The Thrifty Traveller. Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  17. ↑ "Untitled". Ipoh Tourism. Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  18. ↑ "SOCIAL AND PERSONAL". The Straits Times. 11 August 1913. Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  19. ↑ A.B. Hubback: An Architectural Celebration in Malaya Exhibition. Located at National Textile Museum, Kuala Lumpur. "The Life and Time of A.B. Hubback", 17 May 2014, 9.30am–12pm. Dialogue with Dr. Peter Barbor (Grandson of A.B. Hubback), Mr. Llyod Gan (webmaster of thehubbacks.org) & Ar. Rosli Mohd Ali (PAM Heritage Conservation Committee).
  20. ↑ Ariffin, Amanda Suriya (8 June 2014). "Architect of History". New Sunday Times: 8–9.
  21. ↑ National Textile Museum, Malaysian Institute of Architects (PAM) (May–June 2014). "A.B. Hubback: an Architectural Celebration in Malaya". exhibition.

External links

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