Source: Michael Doyle Their Name Liveth For Evermore: The Great War Roll of Honour for Leicestershire and Rutland.
He was the second son of Captain Andrew William Underwood (Indian Ordnance Department retired) and his wife Mary Emily, who was the daughter of Eliza Purnell. Alexander was educated at Wyggeston Grammar School in Leicester, John Connon High School, Bombay India (two scholarships) and Bombay University where he matriculated in 1906, and also Indian Medical College, Calcutta. He joined the Indian Army Medical Service on the 17th April 1911. On the outbreak of war on the 4th August 1914 he was attached to No. 2 British General Hospital, and sailed for France in the following October. He served with the Expeditionary Force in France and Flanders from November being appointed to the General Hospital, Boulogne. He became attached to the 2nd Battalion Black Watch in June 1915 serving in many engagements with the Regiment. He then proceeded with the Indian contingent to Mesopotamia in November 1915 and was appointed Assistant in medical charge of his Regiment, and also in charge of the British composite Battalion, He was present at all engagements for the Relief of Kut-el-Amara, and the taking of Baghdad. He was subsequently transferred to No. 2 Indian General Hospital at Amara, and was accidentally drowned while bathing in the Shala, a tributary of the River Tigris on the 13th September 1917. He was buried at Amara. He was mentioned in Despatches (London Gazette 28th August 1917) by Lieutenant General Sir F. Stanley Maude, K.C.B., for gallantry and devotion to duty. The citation in the London Gazette for 29th August 1917 reads:- “For gallantry and devotion to duty. On his own initiative he moved forward to the newly captured trenches under heavy fire, and dressed many wounded, his action being of the greatest value.” Alexander was a keen athlete and all round sportsman, he was unmarried. The 1901 census records, Mare E. Underwood, Married and Hed of the family, born 1864 in India. The children were William J., born 1889, Alexander R., born 1891, Arthur R. C., born 1893, Marguerite W., born 1894, Margaret K., born 1896 and Andrew L. V., born 1899. The children were all born in India. The family were residing at 100, Knighton Lane, Leicester. On the 31st January 1920 the Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys in Leicester published a Roll of Honour in which Alexander is shown to have been a pupil at the school between the years 1902 and 1903.