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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
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