John Underwood (Engineer)
John Underwood (1814-1893), chief construction engineer of the Midland Railway
1814 Born in January.
Apprenticed to John Urpeth Rastrick.
Worked on Midland Railway extensions.
From 1858 he was the engineer responsible for most of the new lines and extensions of the Midland Railway.
1893 Died 15th August. [1]
1893 Obituary[2].
IT is with much regret that we record the death, on the 15th inst., of Mr. John Underwood, who for many years was well known as the engineer responsible for most of the new lines and extensions of the Midland Railway. Mr. Underwood was born in January, 1814, and, we believe, commenced work very early with the late Mr. John Urpeth Rastrick, with whom he had a wide and varied experience. Among other schemes, Mr. Underwood prepared the plans and sections for a part of the Direct Brighton Line, and was afterwards resident engineer for Mr. Rastrick on a portion of that railway including the Merstham Tunnel. In the year 1845 Mr. Rastrick, having an enormous amount of work in hand, besides being concerned in the promotion of many new schemes, handed over to Mr. Underwood, as independent engineer, the completion of the Nottingham and Grantham Railway, then in course of construction . This was a portion of the Ambergate, Nottingham, Boston, and Eastern Junction Railway, and the only part that was made under the original Act . It was afterwards taken over by the Great Northern Railway.
It is interesting to notice that nearly thirty years later Mr. Underwood constructed - under another Act - the Ambergate and Codnor Park Railway, for the Midland Company, which follows exactly the same route as the western portion of the original line of 1845. Mr. Underwood afterwards took into partnership the late Mr. Andrew Johnston, and for the next few years they practised as independent engineers at Nottingham. On the completion of the Leicester and Hitchin Railway in 1858, Mr. J. S. Crossley - who was resident on that line under Mr. Charles Liddell - was made chief engineer of the Midland Railway, and he induced Mr. Underwood to accept an appointment with the company under him. At this time the Midland Company was extending its system in many directions, and Mr. Underwood, who took charge of all the new work, very soon found his hands quite full. Besides numerous schemes which were proposed and deposited, but never executed, he carried out under Mr. Crossley, the Mansfield and Worksop, the Cudworth and Barnsley, the Chesterfield and Sheffield, the Mangotsfield and Bath lines, and numerous branches in Derbyshire and the West Riding; but, undoubtedly, the most important work of them all was the Settle and Carlisle Line, a line seventy miles in length, connecting the Midland Railway with the Scotch railway system, and passing through, perhaps, the most difficult country that a railway engineer could meet with in England. It was commenced in 1869, and was not opened for passenger traffic till 1876.
In 1875, on Mr. Crossley's retirement from the post of engineer-in-chief, Mr. Underwood was appointed construction engineer with entire charge of new lines. He held this appointment until 1889, when, in consequence of failing sight, he felt it necessary to retire. During the fourteen years he was chief construction engineer for the company, he carried out many extensions, and much heavy work, including the Nottingham and Melton, now forming part of the main line from London to Leeds and Bradford, the Skipton and Ilkley Railway, the new approach to Birmingham from the west, a work of the most difficult and complicated character, and which for the first time placed Birmingham Station on the main line of the Midland between Derby and Bristol. He was also engineer for several lines now forming parts of the Midland system near Manchester and Liverpool ; besides which he was responsible for much important work in and about London, such as the Poplar Dock and connections thereto, the depots in Whitecross-street, and the vast extensions of the Somers Town Goods Station on the Euston-road at St. Pancras, where he covered an area of about ten acres with iron girders supported on columns so as to form two independent station yards one above the other. Some idea of the extent of this work may be gathered from the fact that 20,000 tons of iron were used.
Mr. Underwood was a man of the most genial and unassuming manners; he enjoyed to the utmost the confidence and esteem - it is hardly too much to say the affection - of the large staff engaged under him. His work was always thorough, and there was nothing be hated so much as the cheese-paring designs unfortunately adopted by many engineers in carrying out speculative lines. Mr. Underwood was one of the few engineers of any position who never became a member of the Institution, although he was often asked to do so ; when the subject was mentioned to him, his invariable reply was, "I did not in my early days, and now I am too old ."