Design and Art Australia Online

sketcher, photographer, engineer and explorer, was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, on 15 October 1821. His father, Lieutenant-Colonel George Henderson, had served with the Royal Engineers in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and under the Duke of Wellington in the Peninsular Wars then was a director of the London and South Western Railway Company. James, one of a large family of children, studied railway engineering under E. Dixon, a resident engineer with the company. When it was decided he should travel to Australia for health reasons, James joined a party of sappers and miners of the Royal Engineers under Captain Charles Edward Frome . The group was to continue the extensive survey work still needed in South Australia, where the demand for land continued to outstrip the rate of government surveying.

The party sailed from England on board the Recovery and arrived in November 1839 after a voyage of five months. Young Henderson spent his eighteenth birthday on board. At Adelaide the group was based in the sappers and miners’ barracks a few hundred yards east of Government House. Most of their time, however, was spent making forays into the country beyond settlement, such as to the shores of Lakes Albert and Alexandrina. In December 1840 Henderson led a measuring and surveying party along the Murray River towards North-West Bend. The future of settlement in South Australia depended largely on the success of such surveys; in 1840 alone 491,984 acres were covered.

In February 1841 Henderson resigned his commission and was appointed clerk of Public Works. It was a year of changes. Captain George Grey arrived to take over from Governor Gawler with instructions to reduce government spending. By 1842, owing to the depressed state of the whole country, intensive surveying was seen as less urgent than exploring regions beyond the immediate confines of settlement. Early in 1843 Frome formed a party to examine the country north of Adelaide to the east of the Flinders Ranges; James Henderson was one of the group that set out in July. Thomas Grey, the governor’s half-brother, was another, and the governor himself accompanied the men as far as Hawker’s Station on the Hutt River. It is the paintings and pencil sketches made during this expedition that establish Henderson’s artistic significance. They record numerous facets of the journey, from busy camp scenes to desolate plains and grand mountain passes. In his journal account of 17 July 1843, Henderson writes of his on-the-spot sketching after the party had climbed an elevation 800 feet (244 m) above their camp near Godfrey Creek: 'We could see distant hills in the direction we proposed to go, apparently about 50 miles off. Captain Frome and I made several sketches as we descended. It would afford employment for an artist for a week in making sketches of all the beautiful spots amongst the Blackrock Hills’. Pencil drawings in Henderson’s sketchbook (Mortlock Library of South Australiana, State Library of South Australia, Adelaide, SA) include observations on colour from which finished watercolours, such as Pass in Rowe’s Creek , could be worked up later. Six surviving watercolours record a surveying expedition to the Rapid Bay area.

In order to enter into partnership with the Adelaide merchant James Hamilton, Henderson gave up his government position in 1844. In June the following year he married Anna Maria Clarissa, third daughter of C.B. Newenham, sheriff of South Australia. The couple built a house, Netherby, on part of the 80-acre holding given to them by Anna’s father. Here their two sons were born. In December 1850, because of the death of James’s elder brother, the Hendersons returned to England. Two daughters were born there. Left behind in Australia were the Netherby property and a flourishing business: Hamilton & Henderson, Wine and Spirit Merchants. Henderson revisited Adelaide in 1852, wound up his affairs and returned to settle permanently in Truro, Cornwall. He became mayor in 1902 and died on 13 April 1903.

Writers:

Staff Writer

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

2011