Edmund Henderson
HENDERSON, Edmund Yeamans Walcott RE CB KCB (1821-1896)
Edmund Henderson was born at Muddiford, near Christchurch, Hampshire, England the second eldest son of Admiral George Henderson and his wife Frances Augusta Henderson nee Walcott Sympson. In 1823, his father moved the family to Bruton in Somerset for the education of his children. All four sons were educated at King’s Bruton, a school that was founded in 1519 and had another past student with a Western Australian connection – William Dampier.
At the age of 14, Edmund Henderson went to Woolwich Military Academy and received his commission as Second Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers with 40 of his colleagues on June 6, 1838. He was very tall at 6 foot 4 inches and went on to professional military training at Chatham.
His first overseas posting was to Canada from 1839 to 1845 during which time he was promoted to First Lieutenant. After a short period at Portsmouth he returned to North America in 1846 to finalise the survey of the Canadian US boundary and to determine the optimum route for a rail line from Montreal to Halifax. The Webster Ashburton Treaty of 1842 had created a new boundary between Maine and New Brunswick, and Henderson and J H Pipon of the Royal Engineers were tasked with surveying the boundary. Major Pipon lost his life during this work, being drowned in 1846 when a canoe was upset in fast flowing water. Henderson’s work on the boundary was completed in October 1848 and he returned to England. As part of the report on the boundary he included a panoramic drawing of the country that drew the attention of Earl Grey, Secretary for the Colonies. From 1848 to 1850, Henderson was based at Gravesend, England.
On September 4, 1848, Edmund Henderson had married Mary Murphy in St Paul’s Church, Halifax, Nova Scotia and next month returned to England. Their first child, Douglas Edmund Boyle Henderson was born in Gravesend in June 1849. He was their only son and he also had a military career joining the Royal Navy in 1865. He died young being, invalided home from the Mediterranean, and dying in the Hendersons' house in London in June 1875.
Boundary Surveyed by E Y W Henderson (shown in green) Source: Wikipedia
Earl Grey offered Henderson the position of Comptroller of Convicts in Western Australia, and he took up this position on February 1, 1850. Henderson sailed from Portsmouth on March 4, 1850, on the Scindian with 75 convicts and 55 pensioner guards amongst the 200 passengers. The Scindian arrived off Fremantle on June 1, 1850, but no preparations had been made to receive the prisoners or their guards and families. Henderson quickly secured a wool shed, a stone store, two other stores, a dwelling house and two cottages. After using his pensioner guard to set up basic security, he put 25 of his best behaved convicts to works adapting these buildings keeping the remaining 50 convicts on the Scindian. By the end of June 1850 he was able to disembark all of the convicts.
Government works and work on a permanent prison then commenced, but there was a mismatch between the skills available to Henderson, and those he needed. Being practical, Henderson wrote to South Australia to secure ten stone masons and six carpenters.
Henderson made a point of travelling throughout the colony to have firsthand knowledge of the conditions and need for works. He did not believe in flogging and insisted on having a clear system of law. His strong but compassionate administration produced one of the least oppressive convict regimes in Australia. He was also a talented water colourist and some of his works are held in the Australian National Art Gallery. In 1854 Henderson was promoted to First Captain.
Edmund Henderson’s brother, John Edward, arrived in Western Australia on the ill fated Eglinton that was wrecked north of Perth near Nowergup on September 3, 1852. John Henderson raised the alarm of the wreck having walked to Fremantle. John Henderson worked in the convict establishment in Western Australia from 1852 to 1861. . In 1853 Edmund Henderson designed and had the two storey masonry walled and shingle roofed “The Knowle” at Fremantle, built as his residence by convict labour. His wife Mary died aged aged 29 on December 27, 1855; she had felt unwell at Christmas and quickly deteriorated. He temporarily returned to England on compassionate leave, on the Esmerelda, on February 25, 1856. The expected six months leave stretched to 23 months absence, with Captain Wray being the Acting Comptroller General of Convicts.
Edmund Henderson then married for a second time, to Maria Elizabeth Hindle on August 5, 1857 at All Hallows, Hoo, Kent, and they set off to return to Western Australia. Their return journey was complicated when their ship, the Emen struck a rock in the Red Sea, which detained the couple in Egypt for five weeks. They then took the Simla to Melbourne and the Columbian to King George Sound, eventually arriving in Fremantle on February 3, 1858.
Henderson remained in Western Australia until February 7, 1863 when he departed the colony on the ship York with his wife, son and four daughters. He had reached the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. The 1862 Memorandum of Work shows the massive improvements made to the colony under his jurisdiction, with 563 miles of road being made, 239 bridges being constructed, and 44 wells being sunk, in addition to his contributions to many major public buildings in Perth. These included the Fremantle Prison (completed in 1859), Government House (1864), the Fremantle Lunatic Asylum (completed in 1861, now part of the Fremantle Arts Centre), and the Warders' Cottages in Henderson Street, Fremantle (completed in 1858). Henderson also contributed to the absence of crime and the feeling of community safety in the enlightened way in which he carried out his duties.
The Australian Dictionary of Biography entry for E Y W Henderson concludes:
In England Henderson gave evidence on penal systems and transportation to a royal commission, sold his commission as lieutenant colonel and accepted appointment as director of convict prisons. When Sir Joshua Jebb died in 1863, Henderson became surveyor general of prisons and inspector general of military prisons. In 1869 he became chief commissioner of the Metropolitan Police which he expanded from 9000 to 13,000. He also instituted a criminal investigation department and a police orphanage. He was made C.B. in 1868 and K.C.B. in 1878. On 8 February 1886 a demonstration of unemployed in Trafalgar Square led to serious riot and much damage to public property. The failure of police to control the crowds was blamed on Henderson and he resigned. Through the Home Secretary, Hugh Childers, he was given the highest rate of pension, £1000. He was also presented with a purse of £1000 and a portrait by Edwin Long, and London cabmen gave him a silver model of a hansom cab. Henderson had a good sense of humour, wide repute as a raconteur and competence in water colour sketching. He died on 8 December 1896 in London, survived by several daughters.
References:
Ralph Henderson, “Records of My Family”, Chas Thurnam & Sons, Carlisle, 1926
Alexandra Hasluck, "Royal Engineer – The life of Edmund Du Cane", Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1973
Alexandra Hasluck, "Unwilling Immigrants", Fremantle Arts Centre Press, Fremantle, 1991
https://sappers-minerswa.com/officers/henderson-edmund-y-w/ accessed January 19, 2020
John Le Page, "Building a State", Water Authority of western Australia, Leederville, 1986
Perth Gazette, 10.9.1852, p3
Perth Gazette, 1.2.1858, p1
Wendy Birman, "Henderson, Sir Edmund Yeamans Walcott (1821–1896)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/henderson-sir-edmund-yeamans-walcott-3750/text5907, accessed online 19 January 2020
Tom McKendrick and Elliott Langdon, "Built Perth", Fremantle Press, 2019, p19, 23, 29, 93
