|
October 6 1840 Greenock, Scotland |
1805-1864 |
November 24 ,1843 South Leith,Scotland |
1782-1867 |
|
John Henderson of Park The whole religious community of Scotland and to a great extent that of the sister countries of England and Ireland ill learn with regret the death of Mr John Henderson of Park, whose widespread benevolence and substance of religious schemes is almost if not altogether without precedent. The event took place on Wednesday morning, at the family residence Park, parish of Ichianan, Renfrewshire and was immediately caused by an attack of influenza. On Thursday last, Mr Henderson was driving about his estate and caught cold, the symptoms of which gradually increased and weakened his physical powers until terminated by death. For the last three years, his health had been very infirm, and compelled him to live in seclusion; but the event of Wednesday was not anticipated until shortly before its occurrence. Mr Henderson’s history is that of many of our leading Glasgow merchants. He was born in Barrowatonnes in the year 1782 and was the younger son of Mr Robert Henderson, merchant and ship owner in that town. About the end of the last century while yet in his teens he came to Glasgow for the purpose of joining an elder brother Robert Henderson in a small drysaltery business in the High Street. This venture proved successful and the business in High Street is still carried on, deceased having a justifiable pride in maintaining in its integrity the place where he began the world as a merchant. When business operations in Glasgow began to flow westwards the Messrs Henderson moved with the stream and started a more extensive concern in Frederick St. About the same time the beginning of this century they began the business of East India merchants in London, which business is now among the largest in that department of commerce in this country. The Frederick St, has prospered in nearly equal ratio, and is still carried on. In the month of May 1842, Mr Robert Henderson, the senior partner of the firm came to his death, in a very melancholy way. Along with his brother, the now deceased Mr John Henderson, the Rev, Dr King (then minister of Greyfriars Secession Church, Glasgow and now of London) and a female servant, he was leaving the steamer Windsor Castle to land at Park, which had some years before been purchased by the now deceased, when the steamer Shandon, which was sailing in the opposite direction to the Windsor castle, came into collision with the small boat in which the party had by this time embarked and submerged it in the river. Dr King managed with difficulty to get ashore, as did also Mr John Henderson and the boatman; but Mr Robert Henderson was not rescued until it was too late to save his live, and the young woman met a similar fate. The extensive business of the firm thus came into he management of Mr John Henderson, who with several of his nephews, carried it on till the present time, with what success his numerous and magnificent benefactions sufficiently testify. For the past forty years and especially during the later twenty, Mr Henderson has spent a large portion of his great income in promoting evangelical Christianity. We understand that, for many years back he had contributed to religious and benevolent schemes – the former principally – at the rate of from £ 30,000 to £ 40,000 a years. He was very strict and even austere in his views of religious duty, and was particularly interested in maintaining inviolate the character of the Scottish Sabbath as a day of strict cessation from labour. The furtherance of missions in India and on the Continent of Europe he regarded in an equally strong light, and while he was not wanting in assistance and that of the most generous kind, to other especially engrossed his efforts. His giving was of the most systematic kind and latterly may be said to have been the object of his life. Rooms in his counting house were fitted up with a department for receiving applications for aid, and determining on the amount to be given and a secretary was kept whose duties were wholly confined to managing under Mr Henderson himself the division of the large sum of money annually expended. No pecuniary sacrifice was considered too great where a good end could be accomplished by it. He maintained several religious newspapers for diffusion of what he held to be the right view of life, and on one occasion spent £4,000 in sending a copy of a publication to all the railway servants in the Kingdom, with the view of convincing them of their duty being to abstain from Sabbath labour. With the same end in view he purchased to a large extent the stock of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway and divided it among friends who he knew would oppose the running of trains on the Sabbath. This and other exertions on his part and on that of the other prevented Sunday trains between Glasgow and Edinburgh prevented from running until the amalgamation with the North British Company, placed Mr Henderson and his supporters in a minority. He gave an annual prize to the University of Glasgow for the best essay on the Decalogue and was at much expense in combating recently expressed views on the binding nature of the Fourth Commandment. Mr Henderson bought and maintained a number of mission churches in Glasgow. He was connected with the United Presbyterian body and for upwards of sixty years was a member of the congregation of Greyfriars; but although his own sect received as a matter of course, the principal share of liberality, he did not hesitate to extend a helping hand to any religious movement that commended itself to his respect. He has contributed largely to the extension of the U P body in London. He was far from being sectarian and indeed it was mainly through his instrumentality that there was established the Evangelical Alliance, an association having for its chief object the smoothing down of differences between religious denominations. It is characteristic of the man that when he spent Sabbath at his seat at Park, he preferred worshipping in the Free Church of Ichianan, which he erected at his own cost, to the necessity of driving to the nearest United Presbyterian Church. The Religious Institution Rooms in St George’s Place and the Mission premises for the United Presbyterian Church in Virginia St were built at his expense and many religious edifices in this city and the surrounding district owe their erection in no small degree to the same source. Altogether we knew of no single individual of the time who has done more for the promotion of religious truth in the West of Scotland and indeed throughout the world. In some respect he was a man of contracted views and sympathies; in other respects he was a catholic and large heated to the fullest extent, He was blessed with the means with no sparing hand. If he had not a few of the faults common to humanity, he had one virtue in a degree peculiar to himself; and in his removal from earth, not hundreds but thousands of his fellow creatures have lost a friend whose full worth cannot be estimated by words. At no period in his life did Mr Henderson take a prominent part in the business of the city. The only public office that he held was that of Chairman of the Royal Exchange to which he was appointed on the death of Mr. James Hatcheson. He was married in 1843 to a daughter of the late Mr John Macfie of Edinburgh who survives him. He has left no children. – May 3rd 1867 |
| Bequests of the late Mr Henderson of Park We understand that by his will the late Mr Henderson of Park has made the following dispositions To the schemes of the United Presbyterian Church is bequeathed £ 36,250 Allocated as follows Home missions £ 5,000 Foreign Missions £ 10,000 East India Missions £ 6,000 China missions £ 4,000 Fund for liquidating debt upon Churches £ 5,000 Aged ministers fund £ 1,000 Fund for educating the children of United Presbyterian Missionaries £ 250 And for the building of United Presbyterian Churches in Glasgow £ 5,000 The Glasgow City Mission gets £ 5,000 The National Bible Society of Scotland £ 10,000 The Evangelical Society of Paris £ 2,000 The Evangelical Society of Geneva £ 2,000 The Evangelical Society of Brussels £ 2,000 The Evangelical Society of Lyons £ 2,000 The Union Churches of France in connection with Pastor Monod £ 2,000 The Waldensian Church £ 5,000 Glasgow charities receive the following benefactions Royal Infirmary £ 500 Old Man’s Friend Society £ 200 Ages Women’s Society £ 200 Night Aslyum £ 200 Deaf and Dumb Institution £ 200 The poor connected with Greyfriars Church ( of which the testator was a member) £ 200 The above mentioned bequests amount in all to £ 64,750 The residue of Mr Henderson’s princely fortune has been left to his nephews and nieces. |
Mar 2 ,1848 South Leith ,Scotland |
-1851 |
2 nd Marriage
September 27, 1865 Edinburgh, Scotland |
November 19, 1872 Cramond, Scotland |
1852-1895 |
1918 Kensington, England |
1867-1936 |
June 6, 1854 Leith, Scotland |
-1889 |
June 13 ,1855 Edinburgh, Scotland |
1830-1885 |
| Guestbook |
July 24, 1884 London, England |
- |
| Harold Edward Voelcker 1894- |
John Westgarth Voelcker 1899- |
June 2, 1888 London, England |
- |
| Celia Spowers 1896- |
Rosalind Spowers 1896- |
Myra Spowers 1900- |
January 29 ,1889 |
Ian Munro McLean Macandrew 1891-1914 |
June 22 ,1901 |
July 27, 1880 |
-1914 |
| Robert Horn 1881- |
John Reginald Horn 1885- |
|
1891- |
April 17,1906 |
April 24, 1889 |
| Edith Frances Wood 1890- |
Beatrix Anne Wood 1894- |
| Edith Frances Wood 1890- |
November 17 ,1891 Edinburgh, Sctoland |
| Mary ( Edith) Caroline Jervois 1893- |
Alice Napier Jervois 1893- |
Henry served in the German War of 1914 . Henry was born in Newfoundland , Canada.
in 1901 the familty was living in the Parish of Kensington, London, Henry was listed as Lieut Col, RA - Retired . If did serve in WWI as noted in in Lady McClure's book, he would have been 64 going on 65 at the time .
The Free Cen for the UK shows two marriages in March of 1918 one for a Mary C Jervois to a Mr Breene
and another of a Mr Francis Broome to a Jervois as both girls were twenty five at this time I have assumed rightly or wrongly at this time ( 2010) that these records are of thier repective marriages.