George Cockburn Henderson

Historian, George Cockburn Henderson (1870-1944), was born on 1 May 1870 near Newcastle, New South Wales.  He was the eighth of nine children of Richard Henderson, an English coalminer who was a Methodist and illiterate, and his wife Ann, née Robinson.  Henderson was educated at Hamilton Public School and Fort Street Model School, Sydney.  He became a pupil-teacher and in 1889 went to the Fort Street Training School and in 1890 to the University of Sydney (B.A., 1893).  In his final year he won the University medal, (Sir) Francis Anderson's prize and the Frazer scholarship; he was markedly influenced by Professors Anderson, George Wood and (Sir) Mungo MacCallum.  He resumed school-teaching and joined the University's extension lecture staff.  The University awarded him the James King of Irrawang travelling scholarship and he studied history and philosophy at Balliol College, Oxford (B.A., 1898; M.A., 1901).  Henderson enjoyed Oxford life and worked with an East London settlement conducted by Mansfield College.  

On 5 January 1899, at Leicester, Henderson married May Gertrude Sturge, a Quaker writer, and went with her to Sydney as acting professor of history and, the following year, philosophy.  In September they returned to England and he resumed extension work.  In 1901, in Italy, he examined intensively the life of St Francis of Assisi and in 1902 the University of Adelaide appointed Henderson to the Chair of Modern History and English Language.  He began lectures in June, but his wife stayed behind and by 1911 they were divorced.  Henderson's domestic life blended boarding-houses with the Adelaide Club and he had many friends.  However, he experienced periods of acute depression.

Henderson's innovative 1907 syllabus included Imperial and colonial history, and that year he published Sir George Grey. Pioneer of Empire in Southern Lands.  Research for this book had highlighted the need for collections of local historical records, so he arranged the purchase, by the local branch of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia, of S. W. Silver's valuable York Gate library.  In 1909 he lectured on early South Australian history and also persuaded Sir George Murray to establish the Tinline Scholarship to commemorate his mother's family name, the holders of which were to examine the State's history from original records.

Henderson believed that Australian universities should foster interest in Australian history and undertake a 'systematic and scientific' history of the British Empire.  In 1914 he spent a year's leave overseas and as a member of the Public Library, Museum and Art Gallery board, reported on European archives and record offices; the outcome was the opening in 1920 of the South Australian archives department, the first in Australia.

In 1922 Henderson's enormous teaching load was relieved by the appointment of extra staff but his health remained precarious.  Despair filled him every morning and he endured severe insomnia.  On 27 October he married, in Adelaide, Dr Annie Heloise Abel, an American historian.  His health, however, continued to decline and in June 1923 he was hospitalised.  His wife returned home and their marriage was later dissolved.  Henderson resigned and was made Emeritus Professor in 1924.

In his later years, Henderson was tended to lovingly by nieces and nephews on his small property at Dora Creek, near Lake Macquarie.  However, he often felt that his 'brain was on fire' and on 9 April 1944 he committed suicide and was laid to rest in Sandgate Methodist cemetery.  His estate of  £14,919 went to the University of Sydney to found the G. C. Henderson Research Scholarship for work on the South Pacific islands.  He is commemorated in the history department of the University of Adelaide by the Henderson room (which includes part of his library) and the Henderson Jubilee Fund - History.