John Gellibrand Hubbard, 1st Baron Addington
PC (21 March 1805 – 28 August 1889), was a City of London financier and a
Conservative Party politician.
Background and early life
He was born at Stratford Grove,
Essex
Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...
, the son of John Hubbard and his wife Marianne Morgan, daughter of John Morgan of Bramfield Place.
John Hubbard, who died in 1847, was a merchant in the
City of London
The City of London, also known as ''the City'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county and Districts of England, local government district with City status in the United Kingdom, city status in England. It is the Old town, his ...
, head of the firm J. Hubbard & Co., Russian merchants. It was one of a small group of family companies controlling British textile trade with Russia, and opened an office in
St Petersburg
Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...
in 1816.
William Hubbard, John Hubbard's father, had been a merchant in
Archangelsk, before settling in St Petersburg.
John Gellibrand Hubbard became a partner in the family company in 1821.
Finance
Hubbard worked as a financier in London, with his brother William Egerton Hubbard more involved in the company as a merchant for a long period in St Petersburg.
He became a director of the
Guardian Fire and Life Assurance Co.
In 1838 Hubbard joined the
Bank of England
The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694 to act as the Kingdom of England, English Government's banker and debt manager, and still one ...
as a director. He later rose to become successively
Deputy Governor, from 1851 to 1853, and then
Governor
A governor is an politician, administrative leader and head of a polity or Region#Political regions, political region, in some cases, such as governor-general, governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the ...
from 1853 to 1855.
Hubbard was Chairman of the
Public Works Loan Commission from 1853.
In 1855 he was involved in an official inquiry into
decimalisation
Decimalisation or decimalization (see American and British English spelling differences, spelling differences) is the conversion of a system of currency or of weights and measures to units related by Power of 10, powers of 10.
Most countries have ...
of the
British currency
Sterling (Currency symbol, symbol: Pound sign, £; ISO 4217, currency code: GBP) is the currency of the United Kingdom and nine of its associated territories. The pound is the main unit of account, unit of sterling, and the word ''Pound (cu ...
, with
Lord Monteagle and
Lord Overstone. In 1857 he gave evidence to a parliamentary select committee on the Bank Acts.
On that occasion, along with
William Newmarch,
George Warde Norman, Overstone and
Thomas Matthias Weguelin
Thomas Matthias Weguelin (5 May 1809 – 5 April 1885) was an English Liberal Party politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1857 and 1880.
Life
Weguelin was the son of William A Weguelin of Weymouth Street, Portland Place, London, w ...
, he was subjected to close questioning by
James Wilson.
At the time of the
panic of 1866, Hubbard was with Norman and
Thomson Hankey in resisting the idea that the Bank of England should act as
lender of last resort
In public finance, a lender of last resort (LOLR) is a financial entity, generally a central bank, that acts as the provider of liquidity to a financial institution which finds itself unable to obtain sufficient liquidity in the interbank ...
; the Bank's governor
Henry Lancelot Holland wished to intervene, but the Bank's role in
central banking
Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object.
Central may also refer to:
Directions and generalised locations
* Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...
was at the period ill-defined, and its Board lacked consensus in that area. He commented extensively on the
gold coinage question in 1869. During the
bimetallism
Bimetallism, also known as the bimetallic standard, is a monetary standard in which the value of the monetary unit is defined as equivalent to certain quantities of two metals, typically gold and silver, creating a fixed Exchange rate, rate of ...
debate of the late 1880s,
Mark Collet as Governor of the Bank of England did not comment; but Hubbard,
Henry Wollaston Blake and
Alfred de Rothschild, directors of the Bank, commented in their personal capacity favourably on bimetallism.
Political life
Hubbard was elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) for
Buckingham
Buckingham ( ) is a market town in north Buckinghamshire, England, close to the borders of Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire, which had a population of 12,890 at the United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 Census. The town lies approximately west of ...
at the
1859 general election.
He was re-elected in
1865
Events
January
* January 4 – The New York Stock Exchange opens its first permanent headquarters at 10-12 Broad near Wall Street, in New York City.
* January 13 – American Civil War: Second Battle of Fort Fisher – Unio ...
but when Buckingham's representation was reduced to one MP at the
1868 general election he was defeated. He returned to the
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...
at the
1874 general election when he was elected as one of the four MPs for the
City of London
The City of London, also known as ''the City'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county and Districts of England, local government district with City status in the United Kingdom, city status in England. It is the Old town, his ...
, and held the seat until he was created 1st
Baron Addington
Baron Addington, of Addington in the County of Buckingham, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 22 July 1887 for the businessman and Conservative Member of Parliament, John Hubbard. He was head of the firm of John H ...
, of
Addington, Buckinghamshire, on 22 July 1887.
Hubbard was a
JP and
Deputy Lieutenant for Buckinghamshire and the City of London. He was invested as a
Privy Counsellor
The Privy Council, formally His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, is a formal body of advisers to the sovereign of the United Kingdom. Its members, known as privy counsellors, are mainly senior politicians who are current or former ...
in 1874.
The first parliamentary session of 1860 saw Hubbard with
Lord Robert Cecil introduce a bill on reform of
church rates. It proposed a range of exemptions, but ran out of time. The
Liberation Society, supported in the House of Commons by
Sir John Salusbury-Trelawny, wished to see them abolished, but its backing was reaching a peak. Trelawny and other Liberals were looking for a compromise. In terms of practical politics, the issue was a reform that would pass both in the Commons and the
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...
. Hubbard's bill was brought back on several occasions, and
Charles Newdigate Newdegate offered a reform by commutation of church rates. It took eight years for an acceptable reform to emerge. A bill of
W. E. Gladstone, which had something in common with Hubbard's, was heavily amended in the Lords, and then passed into law as the
Compulsory Church Rate Abolition Act in 1868.
In 1882 Hubbard asked Gladstone as Prime Minister to intervene in the case of the Rev.
Sidney Faithorn Green, who was serving time in prison in a case involving offences against the
Public Worship Regulation Act 1874.
Residences and death
Hubbard had Addington Manor, at
Addington, Buckinghamshire, built to a design by
Philip Charles Hardwick in 1856–7. Its site was near the earlier Addington House, which had belonged to John Poulett son of
Vere Poulett, but had fallen into disrepair. Hubbard bought the estate there in 1854. The landscape architect
William Andrews Nesfield was brought into a planning process from about 1855. The new building was in a French style with a large conservatory. Hubbard demolished part of the old house in 1857.
He retained his London house, 24 Prince's Gate,
South Kensington
South Kensington is a district at the West End of Central London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Historically it settled on part of the scattered Middlesex village of Brompton. Its name was supplanted with the advent of the ra ...
opposite
Hyde Park.

The parish priest at Addington and Shenley in 1865 was the Rev. Robert William Scurr, who died in 1866. As patron of the Addington church, Hubbard brought in the Rev. David Greig (1826–1903), who had been at
Holy Trinity, Brompton, as incumbent in 1869; Greig had early background of urban mission work in
Dundee
Dundee (; ; or , ) is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, fourth-largest city in Scotland. The mid-year population estimate for the locality was . It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firt ...
.
Hubbard was a Fellow of the
Royal Geographical Society
The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...
.
He died at Addington Manor on 28 August 1889, at the age of 84, and was buried in the parish churchyard. The probate value of his estate was £111,985 6s. 1d.
Addington Manor was subsequently rebuilt in
neo-classical style, in 1928–9, to a design by
Michael Waterhouse.
Under the later ownership of
Kenneth James William Mackay, 3rd Earl of Inchcape, an equestrian centre was set up there.
Interests
Hubbard supported
Nathaniel Woodard
Nathaniel Woodard ( ; 21 March 1811 – 25 April 1891) was a priest in the Church of England. He founded 11 schools for the middle classes in England whose aim was to provide education based on "sound principle and sound knowledge, firmly groun ...
's network of what became known as
Woodard Schools. He was one of the signatories of the 1856 deed setting up St Nicholas College in
Shoreham-by-Sea
Shoreham-by-Sea (often shortened to Shoreham) is a coastal town and port in the Adur District, Adur district, in the county of West Sussex, England. In 2011 it had a population of 20,547.
The town is bordered to its north by the South Downs, to ...
, a stage in the early evolution of
Shoreham College. Other backers involved at this point were
Alexander Beresford Hope,
Lord Robert Cecil,
Sir John Patteson and
Henry Tritton. Some of Hubbard's sons were educated at
St Peter's College, Radley, which under the leadership of
Robert Corbet Singleton and
William Sewell ran at a deficit. Hubbard played a major role in rescuing the school's finances when they collapsed around 1860, with Sewell being replaced.

In 1863 Hubbard built and endowed
St Alban's Church, Holborn. The land was given by
William Henry Leigh, 2nd Baron Leigh, and the architect was
William Butterfield. On the advice of
William John Butler, Hubbard as patron appointed
Alexander Mackonochie as the priest: he was a recent associate of
Charles Lowder at
St George in the East in mission work, where there had been disruption and scandal. Later he found himself opposed to Mackonochie's use of ceremony, as
ritualism
A ritual is a repeated, structured sequence of actions or behaviors that alters the internal or external state of an individual, group, or environment, regardless of conscious understanding, emotional context, or symbolic meaning. Traditionally ...
.
He wrote to the Bishop of London on the subject in 1868. Mackonochie left St Alban's Church in 1882; his curate
Arthur Stanton who had been there from the start, remained, on a nominal salary, in the same post until his death in 1913. Stanton had been a university friend of Henry Thornhill Morgan, son of
David Thomas Morgan.
Economic works
Hubbard was a supporter of the
Corn Laws
The Corn Laws were tariffs and other trade restrictions on imported food and corn enforced in the United Kingdom between 1815 and 1846. The word ''corn'' in British English denotes all cereal grains, including wheat, oats and barley. The la ...
of early 19th-century Britain. He advocated in 1842 for a moderate, fixed duty on
corn
Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout Poaceae, grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples of Mexico, indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago ...
imports. He published in the 1840s:
* ''Vindication of a Fixed Duty on Corn: To which are Added Remarks Suggested by the Speech of R.A. Christopher, Esq. M.P. at Lincoln'' (1842). The subtitle refers to
Robert Nisbet-Hamilton
Robert Adam Nisbet-Hamilton (1804 – 9 June 1877), known as Robert Dundas until 1835 and as Robert Christopher between 1835 and 1855, was a British Conservative Party politician. He served as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster under th ...
, at the time of publication known as Robert Christopher.
*''The Currency and the Country'' (1843). This work was quoted in ''
Das Kapital, Volume III''.
*''A Letter to the Right Honourable Sir Charles Wood, Bart., M.P., Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the Monetary Pressure and Commercial Distress of 1847'' (1848), on the
panic of 1847.
Convinced capital and income should be treated differently, Hubbard lobbied in parliament for the fiscal treatment of income tax on earned income only. The topic was under active discussion for a decade from 1852, with contributions also from
William Farr
William Farr Order of the Bath, CB (30 November 1807 – 14 April 1883) was a British epidemiologist, regarded as one of the founders of medical statistics.
Early life
William Farr was born in Kenley, Shropshire, to poor parents. He was effec ...
,
J. R. McCulloch and
William Lucas Sargant.
*''How Should an Income Tax be Levied?: Considered in a Letter to the Right Honourable Benjamin Disraeli, M.P., Chancellor of the Exchequer'' (1852)
*''Reform or Reject the Income-tax: Objections to a Reform of the Income-tax Considered in Two Letters to the Editor of the Times : with Additional Notes'' (1853)
*''Gladstone on the Income Tax: Discussion on the Income Tax, in the House of Commons on 25th April, 1884 : with Preface and Historical Sketch, Including a Proposed Bill'' (1885)
Religious positions
Hubbard was a
High Church
A ''high church'' is a Christian Church whose beliefs and practices of Christian ecclesiology, Christian liturgy, liturgy, and Christian theology, theology emphasize "ritual, priestly authority, ndsacraments," and a standard liturgy. Although ...
Tory, and his position was defined by
Urban T. Holmes III as "a "Prayer Book Catholic", with strong social concerns." He wrote pamphlets on a range of topics with a religious aspect. At the time of the
Gorham Case, he chaired a meeting about it on 23 July 1850. His remarks from the chair spoke for opponents of the Privy Council's decision.
*''The Church and Church Rates. A Letter to the Electors of the Borough of Buckingham'' (1861)
*''The Attendance of Non-Communicants at the Administration of the Holy Communion. Reprinted from a Letter to the Editor of "The Church Review"'' (1864)
*''The Conscience Clause of the Education Department. Illustrated from the Evidence Taken by the Select Committee on Education, Etc.''
*''
The Conscience Clause in 1866'' (1866), with
George Trevor.
*''The National Church and the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church: A Speech Delivered at Birmingham on October 31, 1876'' (1877)
*''Speech of the Right Hon. J.G. Hubbard, M.P.: On Mr. Osborne Morgan's Resolution Respecting the Burials Question'' (1878)
*''A Census of Religions; Denominational Worship; The National Church: Three Essays'' (1882)
Family
Hubbard married Maria Margaret Napier, daughter of Captain
William John Napier, 9th Lord Napier of Merchistoun, and Eliza Cochrane-Johnstone, on 19 May 1837. They had five sons and four daughters:
*Alice Eliza Hubbard (1841–1931)
*
Egerton Hubbard, 2nd Baron Addington (1842–1915)
*Francis Egerton Hubbard RN (1844–1871)
*Lucy Marian Hubbard (1845–1893)
*Cecil John Hubbard (1846–1926)
*Arthur Gellibrand Hubbard (1848–1896). He worked in colonial administration in southern Africa, and married in 1881 Amy d'Esterre Huntley (Amelia d'Esterre Huntly), daughter of Charles Hugh Huntley.
*Rose Ellen Hubbard (1851–1933)
*
Evelyn Hubbard (1852–1934)
*Clemency Hubbard (1856–1940)
Business legacy
According to Daunton, "The Hubbards provide an object lesson on how to mishandle inheritance and succession in a family firm
...
Organisationally the partnerships J. Hubbard & Co. of London and W. E. Hubbard & Co. of St Petersburg were merged, and in 1897 Anglo-Russian Cotton Factories Ltd. was formed. But the business was in financial trouble, and was bailed out by
Stuart Rendel.
Arms
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Addington, John Hubbard, 1st Baron
1805 births
1889 deaths
Hubbard, John
Hubbard, John
Hubbard, John
Hubbard, John
Hubbard, John
Hubbard, John
Hubbard, John
UK MPs who were granted peerages
Governors of the Bank of England
Deputy lieutenants of Buckinghamshire
Conservative Party (UK) hereditary peers
Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for the City of London
Deputy governors of the Bank of England
Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Fellows of the Royal Geographical Society
1
Peers of the United Kingdom created by Queen Victoria
19th-century English businesspeople