Eric John Underwood was born in London, England, on 7 September 1905, the third of three children. Just one year later, his mother, Elizabeth, née Lowe, died and James, his father, a qualified saddler, decided to emigrate to Australia, leaving his three children with family members. He landed in Western Australia with the intention of farming and bringing his children to join him as soon as possible. From Perth he made a journey to Albany, 400km to the south. En route, a chance conversation with a Methodist minister in Mount Barker (50km north of Albany) led him to purchase the saddlery and a small apple orchard in that town.
This was to be the first Australian home of the three Underwood children and of James' second wife, Katie Louise (née Taysom) who, after a long period of correspondence, was persuaded to come to Australia, bringing James' three children. They landed on Sunday 7 September 1913, Eric's eighth birthday, and James and Katie were married the same day in the drawing room of Major George Humble's home in High Street, Fremantle.
The children commenced school life in the Mount Barker State School but at the onset of the First World War James moved his family to North Perth. Subsequently, Eric won a scholarship to study at Perth Modern School, Western Australia's élite high school, from 1919 to 1925. His father left the job in Perth to become an itinerant saddler, travelling through the countryside, until he took on a new land development enterprise near the town of Coorow, 250km north of Perth. This 750-hectare block of virgin bush was developed by the family using minimal capital. Eric and his brother, Gilbert, worked hard on the property during their school vacations and learned at first hand the rigours of agricultural development in this new land. Since few farmers had capital, hard work was the only means of developing new farms and the Underwood family was no exception.
Eric did well at Perth Modern School and earned a prestigious cadetship with the Western Australian Department of Agriculture to study Agriculture at the University of Western Australia. He completed his degree with excellent results including five distinctions. This won him the Norman Albert and Amy Saw Prizes, to undertake a further year's study for an honours degree under the supervision of the foundation Dean of Agriculture, Professor J.W. Paterson. He worked on a botanical and chemical study of Western Australian pastures from north of Geraldton to Albany, a distance of nearly 1,000 kilometres. Because he was a Department of Agriculture Scholar, his thesis was published in 1929 by the Government Printer and was the first scientific publication to emanate from the University's Department of Agriculture. Underwood's philosophy throughout his long and productive lifetime is perhaps revealed in the first sentence of this publication: 'No apology need be made for the subject of this enquiry in a State such as Western Australia, where economic prosperity depends so largely on the productivity of flocks and herds'.
Underwood's success gained him a Hackett Research Studentship to the University of Cambridge where he continued his studies into pasture growth including biochemistry and physiology at the Animal Research Institute of the School of Agriculture under Professor T.B. Wood, and later with H.E. Woodman.
In 1931 he returned to Australia where he immediately began applying his new biochemical and physiological skills to the understanding of nutrition and pasture growth. With colleagues in the Western Australian Department of Agriculture, he studied a problem affecting cattle called 'Denmark Wasting Disease' after the south-coast town of that name. They found it also in sheep and learned that similar symptoms had been seen in South Australia, New Zealand and many other countries. The cause was unknown but thought to be due to iron deficiency. With the veterinarian J.F. Kilmer, who was skilled in pathology and haematology, Underwood used his chemical, biochemical and experimental expertise to conclude that the wasting disease was due to a colbalt deficiency. Responses that had previously been attributed to iron-containing remedies had been due to trace contamination of these remedies with cobalt.
Researchers in South Australia, through an ecological approach, also named cobalt as the deficient element and published a report early in 1935. Underwood and Filmer published their finding two months later. It was eleven more years before Vitamin B12 was shown to be the cobalt-containing factor affecting haematopoiesis and the key to the disease, and a further four years before that substance was shown to be synthesised by rumen micro-organisms. Money for research was very scarce, laboratories were sparse, ill-equipped rooms in odd buildings, and travel to country sites, for example the Denmark wasting disease areas, were day – or night-long train journeys. Research life was difficult, both professionally and socially.
Underwood was courting Erica Reid Chandler during this period. Erica was a student at Perth Modern School and at the University of Western Australia with Eric. She graduated BA with teaching qualifications and taught in country schools for some years. They married in 1934 and had four children; Elizabeth Jill (1936), Jennifer Mary (1939), Roger John (1941) and Peter James (1943). All four followed academic pursuits: Jill and Jennifer in education, health and psychology; Roger in Forestry; Peter in Medicine. Peter has recently been appointed Professor of Public Health at Curtin University in Perth. Erica, even with the commitments of a growing family, led a hectic life. She served for years on the Bench of the Children's Court, she broadcast on the Women's Program of the Australian Broadcasting Commission, was adoption officer for Child Welfare, Deputy Chairman of the Arts Council and successively member, deputy chair and chairman of the Council of the Western Australian Institute of Technology, which awarded her an honorary doctorate. Such a concentration of academic activity by his family must have given great support and encouragement to Eric Underwood.
The poor pastures of the south-west and wheatbelt of Western Australia were associated with low productivity, poor lambing percentages, pregnancy toxaemia, and other symptoms of malnutrition. These major problems formed the research arena in which Underwood and his colleagues in the Western Australian Department of Agriculture worked in the late 1930s and early '40s and culminated in a burst of publications towards the end of that period – studies on sheep husbandry in Western Australia; on biochemical aspects of nutrition relating to botulism-affected areas; on pregnancy toxaemia, a widespread and disastrous condition in autumn-lambing ewes; on VitaminA in the nutrition of sheep; on the nutritive value of meat meals; on cereal hays and pastures. He also maintained a continuing interest in trace element studies on cobalt, copper and manganese.
After two years in the United States in 1937-38, Underwood was invited by Professor J.E. Nichols of the University of Western Australia to work at its Institute of Agriculture. This initiative was supported by the Vice-Chancellor and by Sir David Rivett of CSIRO, and gave him access to laboratories and limited equipment that was lamentably lacking at that time in the Western Australian Department of Agriculture.
Officers of the Western Australian Department of Agriculture were pressing for improved soil fertility and pastures, and farmers enthusiastically adopted clover-containing 'ley' farming systems. The widespread introduction of superphosphate resulted in dominant and often almost pure stands of subterranean clover (T.subterraneum) in the years prior to the Second World War. In 1943, following field and laboratory studies, H.W. Bennetts reported a specific and very severe breeding problem in sheep, associated largely with the then widely used 'Dwalganup' strain of clover. This 'clover infertility' was so extreme that resources from the Western Australian Department of Agriculture, CSIRO, and the University of Western Australia were pooled and research activity was co-ordinated by an investigation committee chaired by Underwood and including Dr L.B. Bull and Mr A. Vasey of CSIRO, and Dr H.W. Bennetts and Mr F.L. Shier of the Department of Agriculture. The possibility of an oestrogenic factor in the clover was hypothesised and it was soon shown that continuous dosing of ewes with stilboestrol gave similar results. As a young graduate, I assisted with dissections in that early experiment, which had everyone associated with it very excited. Even the broken spring in Underwood's 1937 V8 tourer on the way home, the delay in having it fixed, and then getting pulled up for speeding did not dampen the excitement of that day. It was the forerunner of many years of investigation into the chemistry and biology of phyto-oestrogens, their potency and metabolic effects on the management and manipulation of pastures, and the breeding and selection of new clovers of low oestrogen activity.
In 1946, Underwood was appointed Hackett Professor of Agriculture, Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture, and Director of the Institute of Agriculture at the University of Western Australia. He was an administrator who facilitated and joined in research activities, although he was never designated as a director of research. The fast-growing research and teaching resources of the Institute of Agriculture outstripped university resources, so Underwood actively sought and cultivated sources of research funding. He gained support from CSIRO, the Wool Research Trust Fund, and local industry. He became the main architect of the Wheat Industry Fund and its forerunner, the voluntary Soil Fertility Fund. This ensured a satisfactory level of support for continuing research, while his 'New Deal for Agriculture' document presented to the University's administrators resulted in enhanced staffing that facilitated the further development of research and postgraduate growth. The Faculty of Agriculture, despite its small size, has produced one-sixth of the total PhD output of the University of Western Australia.
Underwood was an excellent lecturer and his first-class and logical presentation made even the most complex material easily understood. In 1939-40 he had written a review article on the significance of trace elements in nutrition that attracted readers from many disciplines and established him as a leader in the field. He had a frank, readable style and an inexhaustible knowledge of his subject and these led him to expand his article into a book, Trace Elements in Human and Animal Nutrition, which first appeared in 1956 and was revised in 1962, 1971 and 1977. Another book, The Mineral Nutrition of Livestock, appeared in 1966. His revised edition of this book was published after his death. These works established him as the world authority in the field.
Part of Underwood's success was, almost certainly, his rare capacity to focus completely on the task of the moment. If you entered his room while he was preparing a manuscript, he would put down his pen, deal politely, thoroughly but rapidly with your problem, and be back at the manuscript before you had reached the door. He never wrote drafts in double-space as many of us used to do because his writing was so precise that he did not need the space for corrections. His secretary of many years, Molly Keane, was the envy of many secretaries of that time because his first draft was, with the exception of a few minor corrections, usually his last. The final result, as any reader of Trace Elements in Human and Animal Nutrition will attest, was invariablyprecise, clear and brief – in short, exemplary scientific writing. He continued to write chapters, papers and lectures on a wide variety of subjects in his latter years, which kept him in intimate contact with his science, his colleagues, and the physical and social environment of the scientific world.
Eric Underwood was honoured by many organizations during his lifetime for his intellectual contributions to science: he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, the Australian Academy of Science, the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences, the Australian Institute of Agricultural Science and the Australian Society of Animal Production, and was awarded many honorary degrees. His outstanding contribution was his commanding capacity to apply fundamental science to agricultural problems to derive principles that could be applied for the good of mankind. He died on 19 August 1980.
About this memoir
This memoir was originally published in Historical Records of Australian Science, vol.13, no.3, 2001. It was written by R.J. Moir, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Western Australia.
Bibliography
1929
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1932
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1934
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1936
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1937
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1938
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1940
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1941
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1942
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1943
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1944
(With A.J. Millington) Studies in cereal hay production in Western Australia. I. The influence of time of cutting upon yeild. J. Dep. Agric. West. Aust.21, 35–41.
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(With D.H. Curnow) Vitamin A in the nutrition of sheep in Western Australia. IV. The vitamin A content of ewe's milk and colostrum. Aust Vet. J.20, 282–285.
(With R.J. Moir) Studies in cereal hay production in Western Australia. II.The influence of time of cutting upon the chemical composition and digestibility of wheaten and oaten hay. Dep. Agric. West. Aust.21, 41–51.
1946
(With W.H. Bennetts and F.L. Shier) A specific breeding problem of sheep on subterrranean clover pastures in Western Australia. Aust. Vet. J.22, 2–12.
(With H.W. Bennetts and F.L. Shier) A breeding problem of sheep in the South-West division of Western Australia. J. Dep. Agric. West. Aust.23, 1–12.
1947
(With D.H. Curnow and T.J. Robinson) Oestrogenic action of extracts of subterranean clover (T. subterranean L. var. Dwalganup). Aust. J. exp. Biol. Med. Sci.26, 171.
(With T.J. Robinson and D.H. Curnow) The manganese content of Western Australia cereal grains and their by-products and of other poultry feeds. J. Dep. Agric. Dep. Aust.24, 259–270.
(With A.J. Millington) Further studies with cereal hays in WA. J. Dep. Agric. West. Aust.24, 250–259.
1948
(With R.C. Rossiter and D.H. Curnow) The effect of cobalt sulphate on the cobalt content of subterranean clover (Trifolium subterraneum L. var. Dwalganup) at three stages of growth. J.Aust. Inst. Agric. Sci.14, 9–14.
(With C.L. Bangs) A comparison of methods of estimating sperm concentration in ram's semen. Aust. Vet. J.24, 89–92.
(With R.G. Coleman and D.H. Curnow) Carotene losses in curing and storing cereal hay. J. Aust. Inst. Agric. Sci.14, 175–179.
(With J.W. Lee) The total phosphorus, phytate phosphorus and inorganic phosphorus content of wheat, and its mill products. Aust. J. exp. Biol. Med. Sci.26, 413–418.
(With L.E.A. Clare) The thiamin and riboflavin contents of wheat and its mill products. Aust. J. Exp. Biol. Med. Sci.26, 413–418.
1949
(With R. Johanson and R.J. Moir) Sulphur-containing amino-acids in the rumen bacteria of sheep. Nature, Lond.163, 101.
(With J.W. Lee and L.E.A. Clare) The influence of crop rotation on the thiamin, riboflavin and nitrogen contents of wheat. Aust. J. exp. Biol. Med. Sci.27, 533–542. (With J.W. Lee) The total phosphorus, phytate phosphorus and inorganic phosphorus of bread and the destruction of phytic acid in bread making. Aust. J. exp. Biol. Med. Sci.27, 99–104.
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(With F.M. Reed and R.J. Moir) Ruminal flora studies in the sheep. Aust. J. scient. Res.B2, 304–317.
1950
(With J. Concochie, F.M. Reed and R. Smyth) The value of meatmeal and livermeal as sources of protein. Aust. Vet. J.26, 323–329.
(With J.W. Lee) The influence of variety on the thiamin and nitrogen contents of wheat. Aust. J. exp. Biol. Med. Sci.28, 543–548. The nutritional value of bread in the diet. The Baker and the Confectioner, 19 January, p.105.
(With F.L. Shier) The permanence of the oestrogenic effects of subterranean clover grazing in the ewe. Aust. Vet. J.27, 63–67.
(With H.W. Bennetts) The oestrogenic effects of subterrranean clover – uterine maintenance in the ovariectomised ewe on clover grazing. Aust. J. exp. Biol. Med. Sci.29, 249–253.
(With L.R. Finch) The influence of clover hays on the thiamin and nitrogen contents of wheat. Aust. J. exp. Biol. Med. Sci.29, 131–136.
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1952
(With F.L. Shier) The incidence of oestrus in ewes grazing on subterranean clover pastures. Aust. Vet. J.28, 157–158.
The role of the agricultural scientist in increasing food production in Australia. J.Aust. Inst. Agric. Sci.18, 184–189.
1953
(With F.L. Shier and J.W. Paterson) The effects of prolonged injections of stilboestrol on the ewe. Aust. Vet. J.29, 206–211.
(With R.J. Moir) Aspects of protein nutrition in animals. J. Aust. Inst. Agric. Sci.19, 214–221.
(With V.J. Williams, M.C. Nottle and R.J. Moir) Ruminal flora studies in the sheep. IV. Aust. J. Biol. Sci.6, 142–151.
(With P. Holmes and R.J. Moir) Ruminal flora studies in sheep. V. Aust. J. biol. Sci.6, 637–644.
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1956
(With R.J. Moir) Protein utilisation in the ruminant. In: Proc. 7th International Grassland Congress, New Zealand, 1956, pp.241–250.
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1957
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1958
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1959
(With A.J. Anderson) Trace element deserts. Scient. Am.200, 97–106.
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1960
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1961
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1962
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1963
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1966
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1967
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Hedley Ralph Marston. Rec. Aust. Acad. Sci.1, 73–78.
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1969
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1970
Geographical and geochemical relationships of trace elements to health and disease. In: 4th Annual Conf. on Trace Substances in Environmental Health, Columbia, Missouri (ed. D.D. Hamphill), pp. 3–17.
The cobalt story. Rec. Aust. Acad. Sci.2, 23–28.
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1971
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1973
Trace elements: In: Toxicants occurring naturally in foods (2nd ed.), pp. 43–87. Washington D.C.: National Academy of Sciences.
Agricultural research in Australia: a critical appraisal. Search 4, 155–160.
Science development and the environment. Presidential address, 1971 ANZAAS Congress. Search 4, 413–417.
1974
Human nutrition in our changing environment. Fd Nutr. Notes Rev. 31, 1–11.
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Trace elements in human health and nutrition. Rec. Aust. Acad. Sci.2, 48–65.
1975
Nutrition in our changing environment. The Ministry, February pp. 29–32.
Cobalt. Nutr. Rev.33, 65–68.
Trace elements and their physiological roles in the animal. In: Trace elements in soil-plant-animal systems (ed. J.D. Nicholas and A.R. Egan), pp. 227–241. Academic Press.
The rich harvest – science in the development of Western Australia. Second Walter Murdoch Lecture: Murdoch University, Western Australia.
1976
Mineral imbalances in farm animals and and their study and diagnosis with isotopic tracers. Atom. Energy Rev.14, 591–598.
Methodology of trace element research. Trace element in human health and disease, vol. II (ed. A.S. Prasad), pp. 269–279. New York: Academic Press.
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1977
Interactions of trace elements. In: Toxicity of heavy metals in the environment (ed. F.W. Oehme), pt II, ch. 28. New York: Marcel Dekker.
1978
Trace element imbalances of interest to the dietitian. J. Am. Diet. Ass.72, 177–179.
1979
(With D.I. Paynter and R.J. Moir) Changes in activity of the Cu-Zn super-oxide dismutase enzyme in tissues of the rat with changes in dietary copper. J. Nutr.109, 1570–1576. Trace metals in human and animal health. J. R. Soc. Arts December, pp. 45–55.
Concluding remarks. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond.288, 215–216.
Environmental sources of heavy metals and their toxicity to man and animals. Prog. Wat. Technol.2, 33–45.
The effect of suphur on 75Se absorption and retention in sheep. J. Nutr.109, 1448–1455.
The detection and correction of trace mineral deficiencies and toxicities. In: Man's unconquerable mind. Proc. Florida Nutrition Conf. pp. 202–233. Florida: IFAS.
1981
The incidence of trace element deficiency diseases. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond.B294, 3–8.
