Edmund Henderson
Encyclopedia
Order of the Bath
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...
(19 April 1821 – 8 December 1896) was an officer in the British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
who was Comptroller-General of Convicts
Comptroller General of Convicts (Western Australia)
The Comptroller General of Convicts was the head of the convict establishment in Western Australia.The office existed from 1850, when Western Australia first became a penal colony, until 1872, four years after penal transportation to Western Australia had ceased.-History:Western Australia's first...
in Western Australia from 1850 to 1863, Home Office
Home Office
The Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...
Surveyor-General of Prisons from 1863 to 1869, and Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis
Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis
The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis is the head of London's Metropolitan Police Service, classing the holder as a chief police officer...
, head of the London Metropolitan Police
Metropolitan Police Service
The Metropolitan Police Service is the territorial police force responsible for Greater London, excluding the "square mile" of the City of London which is the responsibility of the City of London Police...
, from 1869 to 1886.
Military career
Henderson was born in Muddiford, near ChristchurchChristchurch, Dorset
Christchurch is a borough and town in the county of Dorset on the south coast of England. The town adjoins Bournemouth in the west and the New Forest lies to the east. Historically in Hampshire, it joined Dorset with the reorganisation of local government in 1974 and is the most easterly borough in...
, Hampshire
Hampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...
, England, the son of Vice-Admiral George Henderson of the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
and Frances Elizabeth Walcott-Sympson. He was educated in Bruton
Bruton
Bruton is a town and civil parish in Somerset, England, situated on the River Brue seven miles south-east of Shepton Mallet, just south of Snakelake Hill and Coombe Hill, ten miles north-west of Gillingham and twelve miles south-west of Frome in the South Somerset district. The town has a...
, Somerset
Somerset
The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...
and the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich
Woolwich
Woolwich is a district in south London, England, located in the London Borough of Greenwich. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.Woolwich formed part of Kent until 1889 when the County of London was created...
. He was commissioned Second Lieutenant
Second Lieutenant
Second lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces.- United Kingdom and Commonwealth :The rank second lieutenant was introduced throughout the British Army in 1871 to replace the rank of ensign , although it had long been used in the Royal Artillery, Royal...
in the Royal Engineers
Royal Engineers
The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually just called the Royal Engineers , and commonly known as the Sappers, is one of the corps of the British Army....
on 6 June 1838 and was promoted First Lieutenant
First Lieutenant
First lieutenant is a military rank and, in some forces, an appointment.The rank of lieutenant has different meanings in different military formations , but the majority of cases it is common for it to be sub-divided into a senior and junior rank...
in 1841, Second Captain in 1847, First Captain in 1854, Brevet
Brevet (military)
In many of the world's military establishments, brevet referred to a warrant authorizing a commissioned officer to hold a higher rank temporarily, but usually without receiving the pay of that higher rank except when actually serving in that role. An officer so promoted may be referred to as being...
Major in 1858, and Lieutenant-Colonel
Lieutenant colonel
Lieutenant colonel is a rank of commissioned officer in the armies and most marine forces and some air forces of the world, typically ranking above a major and below a colonel. The rank of lieutenant colonel is often shortened to simply "colonel" in conversation and in unofficial correspondence...
in 1862.
He undertook his professional training at Chatham and was then posted to Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
in 1839. He returned to England in 1845 and spent a year in Portsmouth
Portsmouth
Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...
before being posted back to Canada in June 1846. He was in charge of surveying the western half of the boundary between Canada and New Brunswick
New Brunswick
New Brunswick is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the only province in the federation that is constitutionally bilingual . The provincial capital is Fredericton and Saint John is the most populous city. Greater Moncton is the largest Census Metropolitan Area...
, which had been ceded to Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
by the United States, until November 1848, when he returned to England with his new wife, Mary Murphy. He spent the next two years based at Gravesend
Gravesend, Kent
Gravesend is a town in northwest Kent, England, on the south bank of the Thames, opposite Tilbury in Essex. It is the administrative town of the Borough of Gravesham and, because of its geographical position, has always had an important role to play in the history and communications of this part of...
.
Comptroller-General of Convicts and Director of Prisons
When Western Australia became a penal colonyPenal colony
A penal colony is a settlement used to exile prisoners and separate them from the general populace by placing them in a remote location, often an island or distant colonial territory...
in 1850, Henderson was appointed the colony's first Comptroller-General of Convicts. He travelled to Western Australia with the first convicts on board the Scindian
Scindian
Scindian is widely considered the first convict ship to transport convicts to Western Australia.A barque of 650 tons, Scindian was constructed at Sunderland, England in 1844 and named after the Indian Scindia dynasty...
, arriving on 1 June 1850. He found the colony completely unprepared for the convicts, lacking even a jail large enough to house them. Henderson secured lodging for the convicts, then began construction of the Convict Establishment, later known as Fremantle Prison
Fremantle Prison
Fremantle Prison is a former Australian prison located in The Terrace, Fremantle, in Western Australia. The site includes the prison, gatehouse, perimeter walls, cottages, tunnels, and prisoner art...
. He was "a kindly and just man, moderate and understanding, opposed to the harsher forms of discipline. He thought that flogging as a punishment did more harm than good, and might be abolished except in rare cases, and that putting men in chains was useless and aggravating."1
Henderson married Mary Murphy in 1848. Following her death in 1855, he visited England with his son the following year and in 1857 married Maria Hindle. Henderson returned to Australia in 1858. He finally resigned as Comptroller-General of Convicts and left the colony in January 1863.
On his return to Britain, he was appointed Chairman of Directors and Surveyor-General of Prisons and Inspector-General of Military Prisons on 29 July 1863, succeeding Sir Joshua Jebb
Joshua Jebb
Sir Joshua Jebb was a Royal Engineer and the British Surveyor-General of convict prisons.He participated in the Battle of Plattsburgh on Lake Champlain during the War of 1812, and surveyed a route between Ottawa River and Kingston where Lake Ontario flows into Saint Lawrence River...
. He sold his army commission in 1864 and was made a Companion of the Bath
Order of the Bath
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...
(CB) in 1868.
Commissioner of Police
In 1869, Henderson was appointed to succeed Sir Richard MayneRichard Mayne
Sir Richard Mayne KCB was a barrister and the joint first Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, the head of the London Metropolitan Police...
as second sole Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis. He was an ideal compromise candidate between those who wanted a military man as Commissioner and those who thought the job should go to a civilian. Although a former army officer, Henderson had served in civilian appointments for the last eighteen years. He was also unknown to the British public, allowing him to establish a reputation only on his achievements as Commissioner.
Henderson immediately endeared himself to his men by abolishing or relaxing some of the petty regulations imposed by Mayne and his first colleague, Sir Charles Rowan
Charles Rowan
Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Charles Rowan KCB was an officer in the British Army, serving in the Peninsular War and Waterloo and the joint first Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, head of the London Metropolitan Police....
. For the first time, for instance, officers were permitted to grow facial hair. They were also allowed to vote for the first time, having initially been prevented by regulations forbidding them to take part in political activity. Henderson clashed with Receiver
Metropolitan Police Receiver
The Receiver, formally called The Receiver for the Metropolitan Police District , was until 2000 the chief financial officer of the Metropolitan Police in London, the Treasurer of the Metropolitan Police Fund...
Maurice Drummond over an increase in pay for his men, a rivalry which was to continue for the rest of his tenure.
In order to spread his constable
Constable
A constable is a person holding a particular office, most commonly in law enforcement. The office of constable can vary significantly in different jurisdictions.-Etymology:...
s more widely and make them more available, Henderson established the fixed point system. He increased the Detective Branch to over 200 men and started the Habitual Criminals Register. He grouped the Divisions
Police division
A division was the usual term for the largest territorial subdivision of most British police forces. In major reforms of police organisation in the 1990s divisions of many forces were restructured and retitled Basic Command Units , although some forces continue to refer to them as divisions.The...
into Districts and introduced Schoolmaster Sergeants in each division to increase the literacy of his constables.
However, Henderson faced problems. The authorities decided, against his advice, to reduce pensions and this, coupled with low wages, led to the first police strike in 1872. The Commissioner dealt with the situation efficiently, dismissing the ringleaders and then allowing most of them to rejoin the force. Although the reputation of the Met was harmed by this incident, Henderson himself was not criticised by the press. He faced an even more serious situation in 1877, when four senior officers of the Detective Branch were put on trial for corruption (Trial of the Detectives
Trial of the Detectives
The Trial of the Detectives was a police corruption scandal involving three senior officers at Scotland Yard in 1877....
), but survived it with his reputation intact. In 1878, he was made a Knight Commander of the Bath
Order of the Bath
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...
(KCB).
But, by this stage, Henderson was starting to lose his control of the force. He ignored the fact that the District Superintendent
District Superintendent
District Superintendent may be:*District Superintendent *A rank in the London Metropolitan Police in use from 1869 to 1886, when it was renamed Chief Constable...
s were becoming ineffective and that two of the four posts had fallen vacant. When the Fenian
Fenian
The Fenians , both the Fenian Brotherhood and Irish Republican Brotherhood , were fraternal organisations dedicated to the establishment of an independent Irish Republic in the 19th and early 20th century. The name "Fenians" was first applied by John O'Mahony to the members of the Irish republican...
bombing campaign opened in 1883, he left its handling largely to his assistants, particularly Howard Vincent, James Monro
James Monro
James Monro CB was a lawyer who became the first Assistant Commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police and also served as Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis from 1888 to 1890.-Early career:...
and Robert Anderson. On 8 February 1886, the mishandling of the Trafalgar Square Riot exposed his inefficiency, and he immediately resigned.