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, while his father, Michael Underhill, had a grocer’s shop at 7 High Street in All Saints parish. At the time of the 1841 census Charles was a young grocer of 21, living over that shop 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.
By the time of the 1851 census, when Charles was 31, he had set up business on his own at 11 Beaumont Street in St Mary Magdalen parish. Described as a "Master Grocer/Tea Dealer", he was now married to his first wife, Mary (born in Taunton and then aged 34). They had six children: Charles M. (9), Harriett R. (8), Frederick R. (7), Ernest A. (5), Mary E. (4), and William S. (4 months). A grocer’s assistant also lived with them, and they had three servants. Meanwhile Charles’s father Michael (described as an 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 the 1850s Charles Underhill moved his business to 37 Cornmarket Street, on the north corner of the junction with St Michael Street (left). Underhill’s grocer’s shop was to remain here until the mid-1920s.
Underhill did not, however, live over the shop. At the time of the 1861 census, he was living at Diamond Villa in South Parade. He had remarried: his new wife was Ellen, who was four years younger than he was. Living with them were Frederick R. (16), Ernest (14), Ellen (13), Emily (5), and Sydney Francis (1), and Underhill’s sister-in-law, Miss Selena Fuger. The family had three servants.
Underhill was first elected to the City Council as a Conservative for the Central ward in 1866.
In 1870 Underhill took a lease on Woodbridge Lodge (right: 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. (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 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)
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. He was elected Mayor in 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. Four of Underhill’s sons (Maitland, Frederick, Ernest, and Sydney) were present at the funeral.
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)