Robert Alfred Colby Cubbin
Epithet: Benefactor, recluse and eccentric (c.1902-1951)
Record type: Biographies
Biography: From ‘New Manx Worthies’ (2006):
Robert Alfred Colby Cubbin was the only child of Robert Thompson Cubbin and Ellen Mary Marsh Gordon Cubbin. Both his parents had strong Manx connections and were each wealthy in their own right. The family owned many properties in Liverpool, quite a number of which were destroyed in the World War II blitz.
A bachelor with delicate health, Robert died on 7th July 1951 aged 49, at his home, Strathallan Cliff, Onchan, leaving a Manx personal estate of £498,914 to his widowed mother. She died circa 1955, and from her estate four new lifeboats were donated to the RNLI. These were the R.A. Colby Cubbin I stationed at Douglas from 1956-1988; the R.A. Colby Cubbin II stationed at Port St Mary from 1956-1976, the R.A. Colby Cubbin III on station at Barra Island, Scotland frm 1957-1984, and the E.M.M. Gordon Cubbin, on station at Mallaig, Scotland from 1957-82. There were also bequests to Patrick Church, near Peel.
Colby Cubbin's luxury yacht, Glen Strathallan, in which he used to sail around the Western Isles of Scotland, was requisitioned for service with the Royal Navy during World War II butwas returned at the end of hostilities. Under the terms of Cubbin's mother's will, the Glen Strathallan was offered to Shaftesbury Homes and Arethusa Training Ship on condition that she be sunk when her useful life was over. For some four or five years the vessel lay alongside the Arethusa in the Medway, serving as an additional classroom. Then in 1960 she was chartered by the King Edward VII Nautical Training College as an operational training ship for deck cadets, and made 192 voyages up and down the Thames and the Medway and the sea approaches. However, by 1969 boiler defects proved too expensive to repair, so she was towed to a position off Plymouth and scuttled, to be used as an underwater practice target for divers including marine archaeologists.
In the early days of World War II, Colby Cubbin had bought Eary Cushlin, 328 acres of lonely moorland on the slopes of Cronk-ny-Irree Laa in the south west of the Island, believing that it would be safe from possible German bombing raids. The farmhouse was renovated and re-roofed with the finest Canadian timber to make a comfortable home for him and his mother. The mill near the house was converted to garage his cars. But
their contentment was short-lived. Only two bombs fell on the Island during the war, one of which was dropped by a German plane flying back from a raid on Northern Ireland. The pilot mistook the coastline around Eary Cushlin for the Lancashire coast and dropped a bomb about 1000 yards from the house. Mrs Cubbin and her son were soon living back in Onchan.
Colby Cubbin's eccentricities were legion. He maintained a boat permanently on steam in case he had to escape from the Island; a keen radio 'ham', he often stayed up all night and so had straw laid down on the road outside the house on Strathallan Drive so that the traffic would not disturb him while he slept during the day.
In 1935 Mrs Cubbin also bought Shag House in Port St Mary, overlooking Shag Rock at the eastern extremity of Perwick Bay, and renamed it Strathallan Castle. Here Colby kept a flock of Loaghtan sheep at a time when there were possibly fewer than 60 of the breed in existence and a general resistance to their preservation was the norm. By judicious movement of stock between Strathallan, Sir Mark Collet's flock at Peel Castle and a flock in the north of the Island, the breed was saved from extinction.
Colby Cubbin is reported to have lived on buns, cream cakes and spring water, which he took with him wherever he went.
After his death in 1951 he was initially buried at Kirk Patrick. When his mother died, his body was reburied in a grave alongside hers in specially consecrated ground at Eary Cushlin.
The house and land at Eary Cushlin were bequeathed to the Church of Scotland, but this institution sold it on to the Manx Museum and National Trust for £600, and thus its tranquillity was preserved. The house has since been used as an outdoor pursuits centre by the Department of Education's youth and community service.
Biography written by Sue Woolley.
(With thanks to Culture Vannin as publishers of the book: Kelly, Dollin (general editor), ‘New Manx Worthies’, Manx Heritage Foundation/Culture Vannin, 2006, pp.147-8.)
Culture Vannin
#NMW
Gender: Male
Date of birth: c.1902
Date of death: 7 July 1951