EDMUND HENDERSON

The artist; thence by descent to the present owner
Private collection, United Kingdom

Wendy Birman, 'Edmund Yeamans Walcott Henderson' entry in Joan Kerr (ed.), The Dictionary of Australian Artists: Painters, Sketchers, Photographers and Engravers to 1870, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1992, p. 355

This work is slightly faded but appears in stable condition overall. The work is in a black and gold timber frame.
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 Edmund Yeamans Walcott Henderson was born in Muddiford, Hampshire and was eductated at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, receiving his commission as Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers in 1838. Following two tours of duty in Canada he was promoted to the rank of Captain and was subsequently appointed first Comptroller-General of Convicts for the colony of Western Australia. Arriving at the Swan River with the first convict transport in June 1850, Henderson was responsible for the overall development of the new penal colony, and for the construction of numerous public buildings, including the Convict Establishment (to become known as the Fremantle Prison), the Commissariat, warders' quarters and military barracks and the Fremantle Boys' School. As commandant he enjoyed a reputation as 'a kindly and just man, moderate and understanding, opposed to the harsher forms of discipline.'¹ 

Following the death of his wife in 1855, Henderson returned to England, but after re-marrying in 1857 he once again took up his post in Western Australia, where he remained until 1863. His penological achievements in the colony eventually earned him the position of Britain's Surveyor-General of Prisons, and in 1869 he was appointed Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. An efficient and effective administrator, Henderson introduced a number of significant reforms to the force, and was rewarded by being made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1878. Confidence in his leadership collapsed following the police force's handling of the Trafalgar Square Riot, and he resigned his commission in 1886.

In addition to his distinguished military and public service career, Henderson was also an enthusiastic amateur sketcher, and one of the few genuinely gifted artists in the early days of the colony. His panorama of Fremantle (now lost) was reproduced as an engraving in the Illustrated London News of 14 February 1857. The present work is typical of mid-nineteenth century British landscape watercolour, with its loose, dynamic foreground foliage in the manner of Peter De Wint or David Cox, and with the central subject – the house portrait – carefully described in the Picturesque middle distance. It is one of two known works depicting 'The Knowle'², Henderson's own residence on the hill overlooking Fremantle Harbour. Built with convict labour from 1852, 'The Knowle' was a handsome two-storey Georgian structure of local limestone, with floors and staircases of imported (Singapore) cedar. Later used as a branch of the Fremantle Lunatic Asylum, the house was eventually converted to serve as the Fremantle Hospital, where it is still in use as that institution's administrative offices.

1.  Alexandra Hasluck, Unwilling Emigrants, Fremantle  Arts Centre Press, Fremantle, 1991, p. XXX.
2.  See also The Knowle (circa 1860s, collection of Lt Col Sir Edmund Neville Bt, U.K.), in Barbara Chapman, The Colonial Eye: a topographical and artistic record of the life and landscape of Western Australia 1798 – 1914, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, 1979, cat. 73, pp. 50, 59, 60