Arthur Benison Hubback

Arthur Benison Hubback
(A. B. Hubback)
Born Arthur Benison 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 as an apprentice for the city architect in Liverpool, Thomas Shelmerdine.[3][4]

Career in architecture

Sultan Abdul Samad Building, first major work in Malaya A. B. Hubback was involved in

In 1895, Hubback became chief draughtsman of Selangor public works department, which was then working on the building of government offices now known as Sultan Abdul Samad Building. The Sultan Abdul Samad Building was originally designed by A.C. Norman and R. A. J. Bidwell in a Classic Renaissance style, but Norman's plan was then reworked on by Bidwell in an Indo-Saracenic or Moorish style, and Hubback also worked on the building.[5] After work on the building was finished in 1897, he worked in private practice for a few years, before returning to public work in 1901.

Kuala Lumpur Railway Station (right) and Malay Railway Administration Building (left), both by Hubback

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] An important work designed by Hubback is the Kuala Lumpur railway station. Among other major works he designed are the Jamek Mosque, Kowloon railway station, and Ipoh railway station. He designed at least 25 buildings in Malaya, and many of these are now considered an important part of the architectural heritage of Malaysia.[4]

He returned to England in 1914 and did not design any further buildings in Malaya, although some of his buildings were not completed until later.

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 Voules Hubback, R.N.) and a daughter (Yvonne Hubback).[3]

He had two brothers. Theodore Rathbone Hubback 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 was bishop of Assam and of Calcutta.

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

Buildings

Old Town Hall of Kuala Lumpur
Jamek Mosque

Hubback worked on the buildings including:

F.M.S Railway Headquarters
Malay College, Kuala Kangsar
Kowloon railway station (demolished 1977 except for the Clock Tower)
Ipoh Town Hall
Ubudiah Mosque, Kuala Kangsar
Ipoh railway station

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.

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.[21] The first major work Hubback was involved in, the Sultan Abdul Samad Building, is in this style. It was largely the work by R. A. J. Bidwell following the design direction set by the State Engineer Charles Edwin Spooner, and Hubback made additions and alterations to the building under Spooner's instructions.[22] This strand of English colonial architecture was based on Indian Islamic architecture and not native to Malaya. Hubback and Bidwell 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.[23]

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, but in elegant dress. While in post-independence Malaysia these functions have moved elsewhere, these buildings remain as a potent visual symbol of the country and its multicultural heritage.

Honours

Sports

Hubback was an active sportsman who played the following sport:[25]

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. 1 2 "The Man Behind Malaysia's Iconic Buildings: Arthur Benison HubbackExpatGo Staff". Expatgo. August 13, 2014.
  5. ↑ Zain Abdullah (June 23, 2014). "Sultan Abdul Samad Building's Architectural Highlights". Virtual Malaysia.
  6. ↑ "Sanitary Board/Town Hall, Raja Road, Kuala Lumpur, Selangor". flickr. Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  7. ↑ "Former FMS Railways Central Offices". warisan peliharaan. Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  8. ↑ "Market Square (Medan Pasar) Shophouses (Sin Seng Nam Restaurant), Kuala Lumpur, Selangor". flickr. Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  9. ↑ "Wisma Kastam (Malayan Railway Building)". penang travel trips. Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  10. ↑ "Untitled". The Victorian Web. Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  11. ↑ Demissie, Fassil (2012). Colonial Architecture and Urbanism in Africa. p. 98.
  12. ↑ "Malay College (MCKK) – Malay Residential School, Kuala Kangsar, Perak". flikr. Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  13. ↑ "About Us". Galeri di Raja. Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  14. ↑ "ANDERSON SCHOOL – IPOH, PERAK". The Hubback Brothers Tribute. Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  15. ↑ Middleton, William D. (2012). On Railways Far Away. Indiana UP. p. 236.
  16. ↑ "Patients' Activities in the Central Mental Hospital (Hospital Bahagia Ulu Kinta), Tanjung Rambutan". Ipoh World. Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  17. ↑ "Thursday October 18, 2007 White House becomes Royal Gallery". The Star Online. Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  18. 1 2 3 "Brigadier General Arthur Benison Hubback – Empire Builder". The Thrifty Traveller. Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  19. ↑ "Malayan Railway Administration Office (KTM Berhad)". Dewan Budaya. Pusat Pengajian Seni, Universiti Sains Malaysia.
  20. ↑ "Untitled". Ipoh Tourism. Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  21. ↑ Ariffin, Amanda Suriya (8 June 2014). "Architect of History". New Sunday Times: 8–9.
  22. ↑ Gullick, J.M. (1992). "The Bangunan Sultan Abdul Samad". Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. 65 (1): 27–38. JSTOR 41493197.
  23. ↑ National Textile Museum, Malaysian Institute of Architects (PAM) (May–June 2014). "A.B. Hubback: an Architectural Celebration in Malaya". exhibition.
  24. ↑ "SOCIAL AND PERSONAL". The Straits Times. 11 August 1913. Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  25. ↑ 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).

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