HENDERSON, GEORGE FRANCIS ROBERT (1854-1903), British soldier and military writer, was born in Jersey in 1854. Educated at Leeds Grammar School, of which his father, afterwards Dean of Carlisle, was headmaster, he was early attracted to the study of history, and obtained a scholarship at St John’s College, Oxford. But he soon left the University for Sandhurst, whence he obtained his first commission in 1878. One year later, after a few months’ service in India, he was promoted lieutenant and returned to England, and in 1882 he went on active service with his regiment, the York and Lancaster (65th/84th) to Egypt. He was present at Tell-el-Mahuta and Kassassin, and at Tell-el-Kebir was the first man of his regiment to enter the enemy’s works. His conduct attracted the notice of Sir Garnet (afterwards Lord) Wolseley, and he received the 5th class of the Medjidieh order. His name was, further, noted for a brevet-majority, which he did not receive till he became captain in 1886. During these years he had been quietly studying military art and history at Gibraltar, in Bermuda and in Nova Scotia, in spite of the difficulties of research, and in 1889 appeared (anonymously) his first work, The Campaign of Fredericksburg. In the same year he became Instructor in Tactics, Military Law and Administration at Sandhurst. From this post he proceeded as Professor of Military Art and History to the Staff College (1892-1899), and there exercised a profound influence on the younger generation of officers. His study on Spicheren had been begun some years before, and in 1898 appeared, as the result of eight years’ work, his masterpiece, Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War. In the South African War Lieutenant-Colonel Henderson served with distinction on the staff of Lord Roberts as Director of Intelligence. But overwork and malaria broke his health, and he had to return home, being eventually selected to write the official history of the war. But failing health obliged him to go to Egypt, where he died at Assuan on the 5th of March 1903. He had completed the portion of the history of the South African War dealing with the events up to the commencement of hostilities, amounting to about a volume, but the War Office decided to suppress this, and the work was begun de novo and carried out by Sir F. Maurice.
Various lectures and papers by Henderson were collected and published in 1905 by Captain Malcolm, D.S.O., under the title The Science of War; to this collection a memoir was contributed by Lord Roberts. See also Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, vol. xlvii. No. 302.
HENDERSON, JOHN (1747-1785), English actor, of Scottish descent, was born in London. He made his first appearance on the stage at Bath on the 6th of October 1772 as Hamlet. His success in this and other Shakespearian parts led to his being called the “Bath Roscius.” He had great difficulty in getting a London engagement, but finally appeared at the Haymarket in 1777 as Shylock, and his success was a source of considerable profit to Colman, the manager. Sheridan then engaged him to play at Drury Lane, where he remained for two years. When the companies joined forces he went to Covent Garden, appearing as Richard III. in 1778, and creating original parts in many of the plays of Cumberland, Shirley, Jephson and others. His last appearance was in 1785 as Horatius in The Roman Father, and he died on the 25th of November of that year and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Garrick was very jealous of Henderson, and the latter’s power of mimicry separated him also from Colman, but he was always gratefully remembered by Mrs. Siddons and others of his profession whom he had encouraged. He was a close friend of Gainsborough, who painted his portrait, as did also Stewart and Romney. He was co-author of Sheridan and Henderson’s Practical Method of Reading and Writing English Poetry.
HENDERSON, a city and the county-seat of Henderson county, Kentucky, U.S.A., on the S. bank of the Ohio river, about 142 m. W.S.W. of Louisville. Pop. (1890), 8835; (1900), 10,272, of whom 4029 were negroes; (1910 census) 11,452. It is served by the Illinois Central, the Louisville & Nashville, and the Louisville, Henderson & St. Louis railways, and has direct communication by steamboat with Louisville, Evansville, Cairo, Memphis and New Orleans. Henderson is built on the high bank of the river, above the flood level; the river is spanned here by a fine steel bridge, designed by George W. G. Ferris (1859-1896), the designer of the Ferris Wheel. The city has a public park of 80 acres and a Carnegie library. It is situated in the midst of a region whose soil is said to be the best in the world for the raising of dark, heavy-fibred tobacco, and is well adapted also for the growing of fruit, wheat and Indian corn. Bituminous coal is obtained from the surrounding country. Immense quantities of stemmed tobacco are shipped from here, and the city is an important market for Indian corn. The manufactures of the city include cotton and woollen goods, hominy, meal, flour, tobacco and cigars, carriages, baskets, chairs and other furniture, bricks, ice, whisky and beer; the value of the city’s factory products in 1905 was $1,365,120. The municipality owns and operates its water works, gas plant and electric-lighting plant. Henderson, named in honour of Richard Henderson (1734-1785), was settled as early as 1784, was first known as Red Banks, was laid out as a town by Henderson’s company in 1797, was incorporated as a town in 1810, and was first chartered as a city in 1854. The city boundary lines were extended in 1905 by the annexation of Audubon and Edgewood. Henderson was for some time the home of John James Audubon, the ornithologist.
HENDIADYS, the name adopted from the Gr. ἓν διὰ δυοῖν (“one by means of two”) for a rhetorical figure, in which two words connected by a copulative conjunction are used of a single idea; usually the figure takes the form of two substantives instead of a substantive and adjective, as in the classical example pateris libamus et auro (Virgil, Georgics, ii. 192), “we pour libations in cups and gold” for “cups of gold.”