Charles Underhill
Mayor of Oxford 1887/8
Charles Underhill (1820–1903) was born at Oxford on 28 March 1820 into a family that had traded in the city since the early sixteenth century. His more recent ancestors had been candle-makers in Friar’s Entry.
Underhill's parents and siblings
Underhill's father, Michael, was a grocer. He and his wife Eleanor had the following children:
- Edward Bean Underhill (birth recorded as 4 October 1813 in register of New Road Baptist Chapel): became a grocer
- Ann Underhill (birth recorded as 25 October 1816 in register of New Road Baptist Chapel)
- Mary Elizabeth Underhill (birth recorded as 9 March 18180 in register of New Road Baptist Chapel)
- Charles Underhill (birth recorded as 28 March 1820 in register of New Road Baptist Chapel)
- Charlotte Underhill (birth recorded as 14 March 1822 in register of New Road Baptist Chapel)
- Henry S. Underhill (birth recorded as 9 March 1824 in register of New Road Baptist Chapel)
- Eleanor Underhill (Eleanor Underhill (birth recorded as 21 February 1826 in register of New Road Baptist Chapel, buried there on 28 December 1827)
- Michael William Underhill (birth recorded as 29 November 1830 in register of New Road Baptist Chapel): became a grocer, lived at 14 Beaumont Street.
Michael Underhill is recorded in the register as living in St Aldate's parish from 1813 to 1818, and variously in St Martin's/All Saints parish from the time of Charles's birth in 1820. In fact his shop was in All Saints parish at 7 High Street.
Charles Underhill
At the time of the 1841 census Charles was a young grocer of 21, living over his father's shop at 7 High Street with his parents Michael and Eleanor, his sisters Ann, Mary, Charlotte, and Matilda, and his younger brother Henry. An apprentice grocer also lived with the family, and they had one servant.
Underhill must have got married just after the time of the 1841 census, and he and his first wife Mary (born in Taunton in c.1816) had six children:
- Charles Maitland Underhill (born c.1842)
- Harriett Roffey Underhill (born c.1843)
- Frederick R. Underhill (born c.1844)
- Ernest A. Underhill (born c.1845)
- Mary E. Underhill (born c.1846)
- William S. Underhill (born 1851)
By the time of the 1851 census, when Underhill was 31, he is described as a "Master Grocer/Tea Dealer" and had set up business on his own at 11 Beaumont Street in St Mary Magdalen parish, where he lived with his wife Mary and their six young children, plus a grocer’s assistant and three servants.
(Meanwhile Charles’s father Michael Underhill, described as the employer of 23 men, was still at 7 High Street, with his wife Eleanor, his son Henry (who at 27 was now his partner), his daughter Matilda, and his youngest son William, who at 20 was a grocer’s assistant.)
In Jackson's Oxford Journal of 1 April 1854 Thomas Tubb, the grocer at 37 Cornmarket Street (on the north corner of the junction with St Michael Street, right), inserted a notice to say he had relinquished his business to Charles Underhill; and Underhill added a notice saying that once alterations to the Cornmarket premises were complete, his house of business in Beaumont Street would be closed.
Underhill's grocer's business was to remain at these premises in St Michael's parish from 1854 to the mid-1920s. From 1862 he is listed as having a licence to sell wine from this shop (and from 1866 also from premises in St Clement's).
Underhill did not live over his shop himself, but moved to Diamond Villa in South Parade.
In 1861 his son Charles Maitland Underhill (18), described as a grocer's assistant, was living over this shop with his sister Harriett Roffey Underhill (17) and a housekeeper.
Underhill's first wife, Mary, must have died soon after the 1851 census. He married again, and his new wife was Ellen (probably Fuger), who was four years younger than he was. They had the following children:
- Emily Underhill (born c.1855)
- Sydney Francis Underhill (born c.1859).
At the time of the 1861 census Underhill was living at Diamond Villa with his second wife, and three children from his first marriage and two from his second. Also living in the house were Underhill’s sister-in-law, Miss Selena Fuger, and three servants.
Underhill was first elected to the City Council as a Conservative for the Central ward in November 1866.
In 1868 Underhill's father Michael died.
In 1870 Underhill took a lease on Woodbridge Lodge (left: now 57 Banbury Road and a Hertford College house). He was to live here for the rest of his life. (The name was probably chosen because Charles’s second wife, Ellen, had been born at Woodbridge in Suffolk.) The 1871 census shows Underhill (described as a grocer & wine merchant employing four men) living there with his wife and his three youngest children: Emily R. (14), Sydney F. (11), and George F. Underhill (7), with two servants.
In 1872 Underhill also took out a lease on 16 Bradmore Road. He did not live there, but appears to have let it out to the former mayor James Stanley Lowe.
Underhill put the first of a series of advertisements for his business in Jackson's Oxford Journal for 16 July 1870:
By 1871, Charles William Underhill is listed as holding the wine licence for this shop in St Michael's parish; Henry S[crivener] Underhill (father of Henry Michael John Underhill) and M. W. Underhill that of a shop in St Martin's; and Ernest August Underhill for a shop in St Clement's. (Michael W. Underhill, a candle-maker, died on 8 October 1873.)
Underhill was a prominent member of New Road Chapel (although he latterly attended St Peter-le-Bailey Church). He preached for the Baptists, and also published a number of religious pamphlets, including:
- "The questions of future punishment and contingent immortality, determined by the literal rendering of the terms 'eternal life' and 'eternal death' " (1873)
- "Eternal torment versus the atonement" (1875)
- "The Scripture doctrine of regeneration" (1878).
He also gave lectures at the Town Hall on Sunday afternoons on "The Immortality of the Soul" (11 October 1874) and "The Nature of the Future Punishment of the Wicked" (18 October 1874).
After nine years on the council, in 1875 Underhill was defeated in an election, and stayed off the council for six years. The Times of 26 October 1880 gives some incidental details of his council career in a report about an inquiry into election procedures at Oxford:
Mr C. Underhill, grocer, after giving some information about the St Giles’s district, said he had been nine years in the Town Council, but was not placed on any committees of importance, he being a Conservative, and the majority of the Town Council Liberals. It cost about £20 to contest the Central ward, and £60 or £70 to contest the North ward, in which there were more voters….
The 1881 census shows Underhill at the age of 61 (described as a grocer and Justice of the Peace) at 57 Banbury Road. With him are his wife Ellen, his daughters Mary (33) and Emily (24), and his son Sydney F. Underhill (21), also described as a grocer.
Underhill was re-elected as a councillor for the Central Ward in November 1881, and held this position until he was made an Alderman in July 1887, when he had led the Conservative Party on the council for five years. Also in 1887 he was elected Mayor of Oxford (for 1887/8).
Because Underhill was on the Municipal Buildings Committee when the new Town Hall was opened (1897), his head is carved in stone (left) in the Council Chamber corridor.
His arms (below left) were added to the wall of the Lord Mayor’s Parlour when he served as Chief Magistrate.
They also appear (below right) in a window of the Council Chamber
In 1889 Oxford was made a County Borough and the Central Ward was abolished. Underhill was then elected a Councillor for the West Ward, and was re-elected twice to this position before being made an Alderman again in March 1896, a vacancy having occurred following the death of his brother, Alderman H.S. Underhill.
At the time of the 1891 census his two spinster daughters, Mary E. (44) and Emily R. (35) lived with Underhill and his wife. Emily was still with them in 1901 when, at the age of 81, Underhill was still a magistrate.
In November 1902 Underhill retired from all council committees because of his ill-health. At that time he was on the Assessment, Parliamentary, Property & Estates, Waterworks, and Visitors to Littlemore Asylum Committees.
Underhill died at the age of 82 on 14 September 1903 at 57 Banbury Road. He was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery, with the Rector of St Peter-le-Bailey conducting the funeral at the chapel there.
See also:
- Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 14 February 1903, p. 10a (death)
- Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 21 February 1903, p. 3d (funeral)
- Michael L. Turner & David Vaisey, Oxford Shops and Shopping: A Pictorial History from Victorian & Edwardian Times (Oxford Illustrated Press, 1972), pp. 24–5 (photographs of interior and exterior of Underhill’s Cornmarket shop, and some of its advertising material)
- 1861 Census: Oxford (St Giles), 891/93)
- 1871 Census: Oxford (St Paul), 1436/113
- 1881 Census: Oxford (St Giles), 1500/5
- 1891 Census: Oxford (St Giles): 1166/68
- 1901 Census: Oxford (St Giles): 1381/40
- Underhill’s three religious pamphlets in the Bodleian Library
- Sydney Underhill, Mayor 1910 (his son)