John Henderson
HENDERSON, John Baillie, MlnstCE MASCE (1836-1921)
HENDERSON, JOHN BAILLIE, water engineer. Born in London of Scottish parents, he migrated to Victoria with his parents in the early 1850s, and was trained as a civil engineer on the construction of the Melbourne Geelong Railway (c.1857) and worked with the Roads and Bridges Department. In 1863 he became the first engineer of Alberton Shire in Gippsland, resigning in 1866 to work with the Water Supply Department in the Central Highlands where he completed the Coliban Scheme (now greatly enlarged).· He was District Engineer in the Sandhurst (Bendigo) and Castlemaine areas on Black Wednesday, 9 January 1878, when he was dismissed with over 200 senior civil servants after the Legislative Council had refused Supply to the Government.
Henderson immediately moved to Queensland, and in April was appointed Resident Engineer for Northern Waterworks in the Department of Harbors and Rivers under W.D. Nisbet (q.v.). In 1879 he was given charge of all waterworks under construction in the Colony, and in 1881 he was appointed State Hydraulic Engineer and head of a new Water Supply Department. It was a time of major drought, and much of his time was spent providing water on stock routes in the far west where earth tanks were dug and water sought by shallow boring. The first Australian artesian water was found near Bourke, New South Wales, in 1879, and following exploration by R. Logan Jack (the Government Geologist), the Department placed a contract in 1885 for deep drilling at Blackall. The plant was unsatisfactory and in 1887 Henderson arranged 'for the Canadian contractor who had just finished the first successful Queensland bore (near Cunnamulla) to drill at Barcaldine, where flowing water was reached in December at about 200 m depth. The extreme importance of artesian water was soon realized and Jack and Henderson worked together to define the basin, which covers about two-thirds of Queensland. There was much drilling for the Department and the station owners but by 1890 it was clear that most of the water was being wasted and that the flow from many bores was diminishing. Henderson, with Jack's support, urged that all artesian water be controlled by the Government, but a Bill he drafted was rejected by the Legislative Council in 1891. Control was not obtained until 1910 following the visit of the famous American irrigation engineer, Dr. Elwood Mead. The Act was designed to give control without unnecessary restriction, but the Department became the target of "unsparing criticism" from "those ....(who wished)... to return to the system of uncontrolled license which they had so long enjoyed". Incidental to the boring programme was the first hydro-electric power plant (on the Thargomindah bore in 1896) and the discovery of natural gas at Roma (1900).
Concurrent with the development of rural water supplies, the Department supervised all town water-supply schemes built with loan funds; the large provincial towns submitted projects for approval, but the Department designed and supervised the construction of many of the smaller schemes such as those at Charters Towers and Gympie.
After the heavy flooding from 1887 to 1893, Henderson installed flood gauges along the Brisbane, the Mary and the border rivers, and established the present methods of forecasting and issuing forecasts of flood heights. He prepared flood mitigation proposals for Brisbane, Gympie, and Maryborough but it was not until 1909 that he received approval to employ hydrographers and initiate regular stream-gauging.
Henderson's Annual Reports, containing detailed accounts of the artesian basins (including isopotential maps) and diagrammatic charts of rainfall, indicate his scientific interests. He took over the Weather Bureau from 1903 (when the disappointed Clement Wragge left Queensland) until the first Commonwealth Meteorologist was appointed in 1908; it was the intention of the Government to continue rainfall measurements only, but as a break in the records would be "a public calamity" he continued all Wragge's work except the forecasts. Queensland's water-supply and irrigation schemes are based on Henderson's work; hardworking and forthright, his Annual Reports gave generous thanks to his staff.
When he retired in 1916 in his eighty-first year they thanked him for his "firm but just rule". Henderson died after a short illness on 15 February 1921, and was survived by his wife, a daughter, and two sons.
References:
Eminent Queensland Engineers Vol 1 is available here.
ADB, Vol. 4, p. 377; Qld Govt, Water Supply Dept, Ann. Reports;
Information from Mr. I.L.B. Henderson, Redland Bay, Qld and Mr I. McD. Thompson, Alberton Shire Engineer, Vic.
NOTE: John Henderson has also been recognised in the Queensland Hall of Fame
