Transcript

of

Colonel Sir Frederick Robert Upcott, K.C.V.O., C.S.I.  [Obituary]

by

Maxwell Adams (Ed.)

Trans. Devon. Assoc., vol. 51, (1917), pp. 45-46.

Prepared by Michael Steer

The Obituary was read at the Association’s July 1919 Tiverton meeting. A rather similar version of Colonel Upcott’s obituary appears in Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History.
His appointment to the dignity of Knight Commander within the Royal Victorian Order was published on May 15, 1906 in the Edinburgh Gazette of May 18th, 1906. The obituary, from a copy of a rare and much sought-after journal can be downloaded from the Internet Archive. Google has sponsored the digitisation of books from several libraries. These books, on which copyright has expired, are available for free educational and research use, both as individual books and as full collections to aid researchers.

Sir Frederick Upcott, who joined the Association in 1910, was the son of the late Mr. J. S. Upcott, of Cullompton. He was born in a beautiful old Elizabethan house in that town, where his father and his forbears lived for many generations as woollen manufacturers, once the staple industry of Cullompton. Sir Frederick was educated at Sherborne School and King's College, London, and went to India as a "Stanley" engineer. For seven years he was engaged on the survey and construction of the Indus Valley line. Later, he won official commendation for railway service in the Afghan War, and for his part in the building of the Victoria Bridge over the Jhelum and in the construction of the Sind-Sagar line. After serving from 1893 to 1896 as Consulting Railway Engineer in Madras he went to headquarters as Director-General of Railways, and afterwards as Railway Secretary in the Public Works Department. He came home in 1901 on appointment as Government Director of Indian Railways, but returned in 1905 to serve for three years as Chairman of the newly constituted Railway Board. His varied experience and expert knowledge were important in working out the great experiment whereby Lord Curzon brought about the transformation of railway administration in India. Sir Frederick, who received the K.C.V.O. during the Indian tour of the King and Queen, as Prince and Princess of Wales, left to his successor a field of work largely cleared of the obstacles by which his own efforts had been impeded. After retiring he became Chairman of the East Indian and Assam Bengal Companies, and he was a member of the Royal Commission on Railways appointed in 1913. Sir Frederick, who was an elder brother of the Headmaster of Christ's Hospital, married, in 1878, Jessie, daughter of the late Mr. Harold Turner, and their only child is a medical man.
He was also a member of the Devonian Society and enjoyed its gatherings both at Calcutta and in London.
Sir Frederick died at the age of seventy-one, at St. James' Court, London, after a prolonged illness, on 15th October, 1918.