Thomas Underwood was a building developer and the 13th mayor of Calgary

Calgary

Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...

, Alberta

District of Alberta

The District of Alberta was one of four districts of the Northwest Territories created in 1882. It was styled the Alberta Provisional District to distinguish it from the District of Keewatin which had a more autonomous relationship from the NWT administration...

.

Born in Asfordby

Asfordby

Asfordby is a village and civil parish in the Melton district of Leicestershire, to the west of Melton Mowbray on the A6006 road.The parish consists of Asfordby proper, Asfordby Valley and Asfordby Hill, which together have a population of around 3,000...

, Leicestershire

Leicestershire

Leicestershire is a landlocked county in the English Midlands. It takes its name from the heavily populated City of Leicester, traditionally its administrative centre, although the City of Leicester unitary authority is today administered separately from the rest of Leicestershire...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 in 1863, Underwood emigrated to Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 in early adulthood. A carpenter by trade, he arrived in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1883. At first, he worked as a farm hand. Two years later, he joined a Canadian Pacific Railway

Canadian Pacific Railway

The Canadian Pacific Railway , formerly also known as CP Rail between 1968 and 1996, is a historic Canadian Class I railway founded in 1881 and now operated by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001...

 construction gang and was working in Craigellachie, British Columbia

Craigellachie, British Columbia

Craigellachie is a locality in British Columbia, located several kilometres to the west of the Eagle Pass summit between Sicamous and Revelstoke...

 at the time of the last spike was driven to complete the transcontinental railroad

Transcontinental railroad

A transcontinental railroad is a contiguous network of railroad trackage that crosses a continental land mass with terminals at different oceans or continental borders. Such networks can be via the tracks of either a single railroad, or over those owned or controlled by multiple railway companies...

. After the railroad was completed, he settled in Calgary.

Underwood spent the first two and a half years working for Jarrett-Cushing

William Henry Cushing

William Henry Cushing was a Canadian politician. Born in Ontario, he migrated west as a young adult where he started a successful lumber company and later became Alberta's first Minister of Public Works and the 11th mayor of Calgary...

 Lumber Company. Then he went into business for himself as a builder and contractor. Underwood was involved in the construction of many of the larger buildings in early Calgary. This includes the Bank of Montreal

Bank of Montreal

The Bank of Montreal , , or BMO Financial Group, is the fourth largest bank in Canada by deposits. The Bank of Montreal was founded on June 23, 1817 by John Richardson and eight merchants in a rented house in Montreal, Quebec. On May 19, 1817 the Articles of Association were adopted, making it...

 building and Burns Manor

Burns Manor

Burns Manor was the Calgary residence of Senator Pat Burns, a successful businessman who founded Burns Meat. It was located in the Beltline District of Calgary, Alberta on 4th Street between 13th and 14th Avenue. Construction started in 1900 and was completed in 1903...

 for Senator

Canadian Senate

The Senate of Canada is a component of the Parliament of Canada, along with the House of Commons, and the monarch . The Senate consists of 105 members appointed by the governor general on the advice of the prime minister...

 Pat Burns.

Underwood was elected to the Calgary City Council

Calgary City Council

The Calgary City Council is the legislative governing body that represents the citizens of Calgary. The Council consists of two offices; Office of the Mayor and Office of the Alderman. Naheed Nenshi was elected to the Office of the Mayor in October 2010 as the city's 36th chief executive...

 in 1894. He spent eight years on City Council including two years as mayor from 1902-1904.

In 1887, Underwood married Catherine Graves. Together they had nine children, three of whom died in infancy. He was deacon of First Baptist Church for over 30 years, director of the YMCA

YMCA

The Young Men's Christian Association is a worldwide organization of more than 45 million members from 125 national federations affiliated through the World Alliance of YMCAs...

 for 25 years, and a member of the board of directors of Brandon College for ten years. His wife died in 1934 and he died on May 10, 1948, both in Calgary.

External links

• 1937 newspaper clipping about Underwood from the Calgary Herald
  Calgary Herald
  The Calgary Herald is a daily newspaper published in the Canadian city of Calgary, Alberta.- History :The paper was first published on August 31, 1883 by Andrew Armour and Thomas Braden as The Calgary Herald, Mining and Ranche Advocate and General Advertiser. It started as a weekly paper with only...