Sydney Francis Underhill
Mayor of Oxford 1910/11
Sydney Francis Underhill (1860–1934) was born in Oxford on 23 March 1860, the seventh child and fifth son of Alderman Charles Underhill (Mayor in 1887).
In the 1850s Sydney’s father had opened a new grocery shop at 37 Cornmarket Street and moved house with his second wife, Ellen, to Diamond Villa in South Parade. Sydney can be found there with his parents in the 1861 census at the age of one, with his older half-siblings Frederick R. (16), Ernest (14), and Ellen (13), as well as Emily (5), who was probably a full sister. In 1870 Sydney’s father took a lease on Woodbridge Lodge (now 57 Banbury Road and a Hertford College house), and the the 1871 census shows Sydney here as a boy of 11, with a new younger brother, George F. Underhill.
In 1881, when he was 21, Sydney Underhill was still living with his parents at 57 Banbury Road.
In 1888 Underhill married Emily Matilda ("Lilio") Spence, the fourth daughter of the late Revd Dr James Spence of the Poultry Chapel, London, and their marriage was announced in Jackson's Oxford Journal of 28 July that year. The couple moved to 2 St Michael Street (which was then numbered 20b New Inn Hall Street) on the opposite corner to the family grocer’s shop at 37 Cornmarket Street. Two of his sons were born there:
- Sydney William Francis Underhill (born 1890)
- Charles Kenneth James Underhill (born 1894).
Underhill was elected to the City Council in 1898 as Liberal representative of the South Ward. The 1901 census shows him at the age of 41 living at 2 St Michael Street with Emily and his two sons Sydney (10) and Charles (6), plus a cook and housemaid.
In 1905 the family moved into a newly-built house at 203 Woodstock Road (right).
Underhill's two sons Sydney and Charles both won scholarships to Winchester, and then scholarships at Brasenose and Balliol Colleges in 1909 and 1913 respectively.
Underhill was elected Sheriff of Oxford for 1909/10. The following year he was elected Mayor of Oxford (for 1910/11). George V was crowned during his mayoral year on 22 June 1911.
The 1911 census shows Sydney Underhill (51) living at 203 Woodstock Road with his wife Emily (53) and their son Sydney (20), then a medical student. They had two servants.
Underhill moved out of 203 Woodstock Road in 1920 and went to live in London. He died at his home at Newcombe Park, Mill Hill in July 1934 at the age of 74, and was buried in St Paul’s Churchyard at Mill Hill.
See also:
- Charles Underhill, Mayor 1887 (his father)
- Oxford Journal Illustrated, 15 September 1915, p. 8 ("Who’s Who in Oxford")
- Oxford Times, 20 July 1934, p. 17a (obituary)
- 1861 Census: Oxford (St Giles), 891/93
- 1871 Census: Oxford (St Paul), 1436/113
- 1881 Census: Oxford (St Giles), 1500/5
- 1891 Census: Not in index
- 1901 Census: Oxford (St Michael), 1385/31