Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Underhill, Edward Bean
UNDERHILL, EDWARD BEAN (1813–1901), missionary advocate, born at St. Aldate's, Oxford, on 4 Oct. 1813, was one of seven children of Michael Underhill, a grocer of Oxford, by his wife Eleanor Scrivener. After education at the school in Oxford of John Howard Hinton [q. v.], baptist minister, Underhill engaged in business as a grocer in Beaumont Street, Oxford, from 1828 until 1843. Owing to the ill-health of his wife he then removed to Avening, near Stroud, Gloucestershire, where he devoted himself to the study of ecclesiastical history from the baptist point of view. In 1845 he founded the Hanserd Knollys Society for the publication of works by early baptist writers. Of the ten volumes which appeared Underhill edited seven, two with elaborate introductions on the Tudor history of the sect. In 1848 he became proprietor and editor of the ‘Baptist Record,’ to which he contributed historical papers. After the cessation of the magazine in June 1849 Underhill became joint secretary of the Baptist Missionary Society (July 1849). He was sole secretary from 1869 to 1876, and honorary secretary from 1876 until death. The society's work grew rapidly under his guidance. He visited the missionary centres of the society, and during a long stay in India and Ceylon from October 1854 to February 1857 acquired a full knowledge of Indian problems, which he placed at the disposal of the committee of the House of Commons on the affairs of India in 1859.
After visiting the West Indies, Trinidad, and Jamaica in 1859, Underhill published ‘The West Indies: their Social and Religious Condition’ (1862). Subsequently he took part in the violent controversy over the treatment of the native population in Jamaica. Under the title of ‘The Exposition of Abuses in Jamaica’ he published in 1865 a letter, exposing the cruelty of the planters, which he had addressed to Edward Cardwell, the colonial secretary (5 Jan. 1865). A rising of the natives followed in October. The governor, Edward John Eyre [q. v. Suppl. II], denounced Underhill's pamphlet as an incitement to sedition, and with his champions vehemently impugned Underhill's accuracy.
In 1869 Underhill went to the Cameroons, and settled differences among the baptist missionaries. On his return he devoted himself to missionary organisation and literary work, writing, besides magazine articles and accounts of baptist missions, biographies of J. M. Phillippo (1881), Alfred Saker (1884), and J. Wenger, D.D. (1886).
In 1873 he became president of the Baptist Union; in 1876 he was made treasurer of the Bible Translation Society, and in 1880 treasurer of the Regent's Park Baptist College, of the committee of which he had been a member since 1857; in 1886 he was president of the London Baptist Association. In 1870 the honorary degree of LL.D. was conferred on him by the Rochester University, U.S.A. He died at Hampstead on 11 May 1901, and was buried at Hampstead cemetery. He married thrice: (1) in 1836 Sophia Ann, daughter of Samuel Collingwood, printer to Oxford University, by whom he had three daughters; she died on 25 Oct. 1850; (2) on 17 Nov. 1852 Emily, eldest daughter of John Lee Benham of London; she died in the Cameroons on 22 Dec. 1869; (3) on 17 July 1872 Mary, daughter of Alfred Pigeon, distiller, of London. She survived Underhill till 2 Dec. 1908.
The works which Underhill edited for the Hanserd Knollys Society were: 1. ‘Tracts on Liberty of Conscience and Persecution, 1614–1661,’ 1846. 2. ‘The Records of a Church of Christ meeting in Broadmead, Bristol, 1640–1687,’ 1847. 3. ‘The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution discussed: by Roger Williams [1644],’ 1848. 4. ‘A Martyrology of the Baptists during the Era of the Reformation: translated from the Dutch of T. J. Van Braght [1660],’ 2 vols. 1850. 5. ‘Records of the Churches of Christ gathered at Fenstanton, Warboys, and Hexham, 1644–1720,’ 1854. 6. ‘Confessions of faith and other Public Documents illustrative of the History of the Baptist Churches of England in the Seventeenth Century,’ 1854. Other works include ‘Distinctive Features of the Baptist Denomination’ (1851) and ‘The Divine Legation of Paul the Apostle’ (1889). He also contributed an article on Bible translation to the Baptist Missionary Society's centenary volume, 1892.
[The Times, 14 May 1901; In Memoriam volume with appreciation by Rev. D. J. East (with portrait); Baptist Magazine, November 1886 (with portrait); J. S. Dennis, Christian Missions and Social Progress, 3 vols. 1897–9; private information.]