- Charles Henderson (historian)
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For other people named Charles Henderson, see Charles Henderson (disambiguation).
Charles G. Henderson Born July 11, 1900
JamaicaDied September 24, 1933
Rome, ItalyNationality British Occupation Historian and antiquary Spouse Mary Isobel Munro Charles Gordon Henderson (July 11, 1900 – September 24, 1933) was a historian and antiquarian of Cornwall.
Charles Henderson's only quarrel with Cornwall was that it had given him no more than a quarter of his blood. His father, Major J. S. Henderson, was half Scottish and half of the Irish family of Newenham: his mother was a Carus-Wilson from Westmorland. Both, however, were born and bred in Cornwall, and a portion of Cornish ancestry came to him through his mother's mother, one of the Willyamses of Carnanton in Mawgan-in-Pydar. He was glad to claim so much hereditary right to Cornwall, and it happened against his wish that he neither began nor ended his life there, but was born in Jamaica and died in Rome.
Contents
Biography
He was at Wellington College for a short time but left on account of ill-health. For this reason he was frequently sent home from school for rest, and spent a large amount of his time walking over Cornwall and studying Cornish monuments and history. He collected a large number of documents from all over the county and published a book on Cornish bridges in collaboration with Mr. H. Coates. He went to New College, Oxford and took his degree with first-class honours in Modern History in 1922. He was a lecturer at University College, Exeter, and afterwards at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he was elected to an official fellowship as tutor in modern history in 1929. He had settled down at Oxford, and was showing great promise as a teacher and lecturer. Whenever he was able he would return to Cornwall and continue his historical research which in the early years was concerned very largely with the four western hundreds but finally he planned a parochial history of the whole county on a grand scale.
Married life and death
On 19 June 1933, he married (Mary) Isobel Munro, a fellow of Somerville College and daughter of J. A. R. Munro, the Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford; at the end of August, he set out with her for southern Italy. He had been troubled for some months with pains in his chest and they attacked him severely at Monte Sant'Angelo on the Gargano, where he was visiting the shrine of the Cornish patron St. Michael. He died in Rome eleven days later, on 24 September, of heart-failure following pleurisy.
He was buried in the Protestant Cemetery, Rome, between the Porta San Paolo and Monte Testaccio, a place that he knew well: also in that cemetery are the graves of Keats and Shelley and one great Cornishman, Edward John Trelawny.
Scholarly work
Mr. Henderson’s publications included Cornwall; A Guide in collaboration with J. C. Tregarthen, in 1925; three books on Cornish churches; and another on Cornish coasts, moors, and valleys with notes on antiquities. In 1928, he was made a Bard of the Cornish Gorseth at Boscawen-Un, taking the bardic name Map Hendra ('Son of the Old Farmstead'). His collection of documents is held at the Courtney Library of the Royal Institution of Cornwall in Truro.
References
- Obituary The Times newspaper, 26 September 1933.
- Article written by A. L. Rowse The Times, 2 October 1933
- Article by Arthur Quiller-Couch introductory to Charles Henderson's Essays in Cornish History published after the death of Henderson.
Selected works
- The 109 Ancient Parishes of the Four Western Hundreds of Cornwall 1955 (in Journal of Royal Institution of Cornwall)
- The Cornish Church Guide (only in part by Henderson) 1925 ISBN 0-85153-052-4
- The Cornish Church Guide and Parochial History of Cornwall. Truro: D. Bradford Barton, 1964 (a reissue of the Parochial history section only from The Cornish Church Guide, to which illustrations are added)
- Cornish Saints with Gilbert Hunter Doble 1927
- Cornwall: a Survey of its Coast, Moors, and Valleys 1930
- The Ecclesiastical History of Western Cornwall. 2 vols. Truro: Royal Institution of Cornwall; D. Bradford Barton, 1962
- Essays in Cornish History edited by A. L. Rowse and M. I. Henderson (his wife) 1935 Contents include: essays on Truro, the origin of towns, Fowey, Lostwithiel, Restormel Castle, Mitchell, Luxulyan, Helston, St Ives, the Deanery of Buryan, the Hundreds of Pydar and Powder, Twelve Men's Moor, Black-more, woodlands, and shorter pieces
- Four Saints of the Fal. St. Gluvias, St. Kea, St. Fili, St. Rumon 1929
- A History of the Parish and Church of Saint Euny-Lelant with Gilbert Hunter Doble and R. Morton Nance, and a description of the Church by M. H. N. C. Atchley. 1939
- A History of the Parish of Constantine in Cornwall; edited by the Rev. G. H. Doble. 1937
- A History of the Parish of Crowan ... with explanations of place-names by R. Morton Nance, 1939
- Mabe Church and Parish, Cornwall 1931
- Old Cornish Bridges and Streams 1928
- Old Devon Bridges 1938
- Records of the Church and Priory of St. Germans in Cornwall with a preface by the Rt. Rev. the Lord Bishop of Truro. 1929
- Saint Carantoc 1928
- Saint Clether 1930
- Saint Cuby 1929
- Saint Day 1933
- Saint Euny 1933
- Saint Gerent, Gerendus, Gerens 1938
- Saint Gudwal or Gurval 1933
- Saint Mawgan 1936
- Saint Melor 1927
- Saint Nectan, S. Keyne and the Children of Brychan in Cornwall 1930
- Saint Neot 1929
- Saint Nonna 1928
- Saint Perran, Saint Keverne, & Saint Kerrian 1931
- Saint Petrock 1938
- Saint Rumon and Saint Ronan 1939
- Saint Selevan 1928
- Saint Senan 1928
- Saint Sezni 1928
- Saint Tudy 1929
- Saint Winnoc 1940
- Some Notes on the Parish of Goran, otherwise St. Goronus 1936
- St. Columb Major Church & Parish 1930
- St. Constantine, King and Monk, and St. Mervyn 1930
External links
- Samples of Henderson's Cornish writing:
Categories:- British historians
- Writers on the history of Cornwall
- British antiquarians
- Alumni of New College, Oxford
- Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Oxford
- People from Cornwall
- Bards of the Cornish Gorseth
- Clan Henderson
- 1900 births
- 1933 deaths
- Old Wellingtonians
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