Arthur Underhill
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Sir Arthur Underhill (1850 - 1939) was a legal scholar and barrister of the nineteenth century. He was the author of many works on legal
torts A tort is a civil wrong, other than breach of contract, that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act. Tort law can be contrasted with criminal law, which deals with c ...
and
property law Property law is the area of law that governs the various forms of ownership in real property (land) and personal property. Property refers to legally protected claims to resources, such as land and personal property, including intellectual prope ...
and is noted for being the father of the famed mystic and peace activist,
Evelyn Underhill Evelyn Underhill (6 December 1875 – 15 June 1941) was an English Anglo-Catholic writer and pacifist known for her numerous works on religion and spirituality, spiritual practice, in particular Christian mysticism. Her best-known work is ''Myst ...
.


Childhood and family background

Underhill was born on 10 October 1850 into an upper middle-class family in
Wolverhampton Wolverhampton ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands of England. Located around 12 miles (20 km) north of Birmingham, it forms the northwestern part of the West Midlands conurbation, with the towns of ...
, where his father practiced as a solicitor. The Underhill family tree, which Arthur Underhill took pains to trace, goes back to a William Underhill in the fifteenth century. It was this ancestor's arms and motto, Vive et Ama, which Arthur Underhill later revived and used. In Tudor times there was one Underhill who was known as the hot-gospeller. Later in the eighteenth century a certain John Underhill was a stout Nonconformist divine, but the family returned to the Established Church. As a child, he was known as a voracious reader, carrying out books from his father's library to read in his house among the tree-tops. His lifelong interest in sailing can also be dated to childhood. Religion did not play a large part in his upbringing, although his younger brother Charles attended Cambridge and later became an Anglican priest.


Early career and life

Underhill was educated at one of the
Woodard Schools Woodard Schools is a group of Anglican schools (both primary and secondary) affiliated to the Woodard Corporation (formerly the Society of St Nicolas) which has its origin in the work of Nathaniel Woodard, a Church of England priest in the Anglo-C ...
, and later studied law at
Trinity College Dublin Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Unive ...
where he graduated with an LLD. He had initially trained in his father's office as a
solicitor A solicitor is a lawyer who traditionally deals with most of the legal matters in some jurisdictions. A person must have legally defined qualifications, which vary from one jurisdiction to another, to be described as a solicitor and enabled to p ...
but decided to leave that side of the legal profession and practise instead as a
barrister A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdiction (area), jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include arguing cases in courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, jurisprud ...
. Upon graduating from Trinity, Underhill was called to the Bar, entering
Lincoln’s Inn The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn, commonly known as Lincoln's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court (professional associations for barristers and judges) in London. To be called to the bar in order to practise as a barrister in England ...
in 1872. It was a risky decision, and his memoirs disclose the struggles of his first ten years. In 1874, he married Alice Lucy Ironmonger, daughter of a Wolverhampton Justice of the Peace. Shortly after his daughter Evelyn’s birth in 1875, Underhill left Wolverhampton for London.


Relationship with daughter Evelyn

Although Arthur Underhill was a notable legal scholar during his own lifetime, he is primarily known today as the father of one of Britain's most well-known and revered spiritual figures of the twentieth century,
Evelyn Underhill Evelyn Underhill (6 December 1875 – 15 June 1941) was an English Anglo-Catholic writer and pacifist known for her numerous works on religion and spirituality, spiritual practice, in particular Christian mysticism. Her best-known work is ''Myst ...
. Evelyn’s biographers have suggested that Underhill had a ‘distant and cool’ relationship with his daughter in her early life. Margaret Cropper suggested that ‘Sir Arthur Underhill really discovered his daughter in her late teens, and became aware then of her good brain and penetrating ability.’ Despite this early distance, Cropper noted that family life was ‘secure and affectionate’ and that ‘Evelyn remained through their whole lives very much at her parents' call and very sure of their value.’ His daughter shared her father's interest in the law. Unlike his famous daughter, however, Underhill was not religiously observant. While it appears that Underhill exerted little influence on his daughter’s interest in religion, his autobiography reveals he was a convinced
Deist Deism ( or ; derived from the Latin term '' deus'', meaning "god") is the philosophical position and rationalistic theology that generally rejects revelation as a source of divine knowledge and asserts that empirical reason and observation ...
, and argued against the sufficiency of science to produce a satisfying view of life. Underhill provided a number of educational privileges to Evelyn, including travelling with his daughter to mainland Europe in 1890. The trip, which Evelyn repeated through her early adulthood, enabled her to discover a kind of religious life and worship that was unknown to her in England. She later recalled that the profoundly moving European art that she encountered in her travels provided rich material for her works of fiction.


Authored legal work

Underhill was considered an expert on torts and private trusts. Some of his more famous works include A Practical and Concise Manual of the Procedure of the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice both in Actions and Matters (1881); A Concise Guide to Modern Equity Being a Course of Nine Lectures evised and enlarged(1885); A Summary of the Law of Torts, or, Wrongs Independent of Contract (1911); The Line of Least Resistance: An Easy but Effective Method of Simplifying the Law of Real Property (1919) all published by Butterworth in London. He also produced an autobiography, Change and Decay: The Recollections and Reflections of an Octogenarian Bencher (London: Butterworth, 1938).


Yachtsmanship

Underhill was an accomplished yachtsman. In 1881 he founded and later became
Commodore Commodore may refer to: Ranks * Commodore (rank), a naval rank ** Commodore (Royal Navy), in the United Kingdom ** Commodore (India), in India ** Commodore (United States) ** Commodore (Canada) ** Commodore (Finland) ** Commodore (Germany) or ' ...
of the
Royal Cruising Club The Royal Cruising Club (RCC) is a British yacht club founded in London in 1880 to support leisure sailing. It is most widely known for the series of pilotage books produces under the auspices of the Royal Cruising Club Pilotage Foundation, a ...
, earning a Master Mariner's Certiticate (Cruising) in 1890.’Arthur Underhill,’ Who's Who Volume 67 (London: A&C Black, 1915) He also authored Our Silver Streak, or the Yachtsman's Guide to the English Channel: Simple Navigation for Home Waters; and Courses and Distances round the British Isles.


Knighthood

Underhill was knighted in 1922 as part of the
1922 Dissolution Honours The 1922 Dissolution Honours List was issued on 19 October 1922 at the advice of the outgoing Prime Minister, David Lloyd George. Earldoms * The Rt Hon. Frederick Edwin Smith, 1st Viscount Birkenhead * The Rt Hon. Horace Brand, 1st Viscount F ...
.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Underhill, Arthur 1850 births 1939 deaths English lawyers 19th-century English lawyers 20th-century English lawyers Alumni of Trinity College Dublin People from Wolverhampton