- Lords,’ London, 1774, 8vo. 10. ‘Letter to Dr. Samuel Johnson on his Journey to the Western Isles,’ London [1775], 8vo.
- ‘A Second Letter to Dr. Samuel Johnson, in which his wicked and opprobrious Invectives are shown,’ London [1775], 8vo.
Nothing is known of Henderson after this date. The ‘Second Letter’ contains a highly abusive ‘impartial character of Smollett,’ with whom he had come into collision in his lives of Stair and the Duke of Cumberland. Johnson is called ‘a viper’ and ‘freight with venom and malignity.’
Henderson certainly appears to have been an odd character; he was a man of much reading, and his books are well written. After 1760 most of his books were published in Westminster Hall, famous for a couple of centuries for booksellers' shops (see Gent. Mag. November and December 1853, pp. 480, 602). The ‘Life of William the Conqueror’ and some of the later publications were ‘printed for the author and sold by J. Henderson in Westminster Hall.’ This may have been his son. The fact of his living or reading in the hall is alluded to in the ‘Pettyfoggers,’ a parody on Gray's ‘Elegy,’ in which a group of Westminster boys playing at fives
Makes Henderson, the studious, damn their eyes
When batt'ring down the plaster from the wall.
[Biographical memoranda in the prefaces to Life of William the Conqueror, 1764, Life of Duke of Cumberland, 1766, and Diss. on the Royal Line of Scotland, 1771; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. x. 427–8, 3rd ser. iii. 89, 216; J. D. Reuss's Alphabetical Register of Authors in Great Britain, Berlin, 1791, 8vo.]
HENDERSON, ANDREW (1783–1835), portrait-painter, born at Cleish, near Kinross in Scotland, in 1783, was son of the gardener to Lord-chief-commissioner William Adam [q. v.] at Blair-Adam, Kinross-shire. He was apprenticed at the age of thirteen to his brother Thomas in General Scott's gardens at Bellevue, Edinburgh, and was subsequently employed in the Earl of Kinnoull's gardens at Dupplin and in the Earl of Hopetoun's near Edinburgh. His constitution not being strong enough for outdoor work, he obtained a situation in a manufacturing house in Paisley, and eventually became foreman in Messrs. Hepburn & Watt's establishment there. His love of pictorial art led him, however, to attend a drawing-school, and eventually to surrender his position in order to become an artist. In March 1809 he went to London, and studied for three or four years in the Royal Academy. In 1813 he returned to Scotland, settled at Glasgow as a portrait-painter, practising with considerable local success for about twenty years, and exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh in 1828, 1829, and 1830. Henderson was a man of extremely original character, of fiery temperament and violent impetuosity in speech, yet full of broad humour, and much beloved by his intimate friends. He was large and ungainly in figure, but possessed a sharp, shrill voice. In 1832 he published at Edinburgh a collection of ‘Scottish Proverbs,’ with etchings by himself, and a preface by his intimate friend W. Motherwell; a second edition was published in London in 1876 without the etchings. Henderson, Motherwell, and a third intimate friend and equally original character, John Donald Carrick [q. v.], were the chief contributors to ‘The Laird of Logan; Anecdotes and Tales illustrative of the Wit and Humour of Scotland’ (posthumously published 1841). The book contains many anecdotes of Henderson, and the preface supplies biographies of the three friends. Henderson died of apoplexy in Glasgow, 9 April 1835, and was buried in the necropolis. A portrait by himself was exhibited by Dr. William Young in the Glasgow Exhibition of British Artists, 1835. Henderson was an original member of the Society of Dilettanti, founded in Glasgow in 1825.
[Biography in the preface to The Laird of Logan; J. Irving's Book of Eminent Scotsmen; private information.]
HENDERSON, CHARLES COOPER (1803–1877), painter and etcher, born at the Abbey House, Chertsey, 14 June 1803, was younger son of John Henderson, and brother of John Henderson (1797–1878) [q. v.], the art collector. He was educated at Winchester as a commoner, and studied for the bar, but did not practise. Henderson was a very prolific artist, skilled in drawing the horse, and produced many subjects illustrative of coaching and scenes ‘on the road.’ Numbers of these were engraved and published by Messrs. Fores of Piccadilly, by Ackermann, and others; some he etched himself. When quite young he etched some views in Italy. Henderson married in 1828 Charlotte, eldest daughter of John By, by whom he had seven sons, including Colonel Kennett Gregg Henderson, C.B., and two daughters. He died at Lower Halliford-on-Thames on 21 Aug. 1877.
[Private information.]
