Charles G. Henderson

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For other people named Charles Henderson, see Charles Henderson (disambiguation)

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 Willyams of Carnanton who entered the Duchy in the sixteenth century by the gift of an Arundell manor. 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.

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 Duchy 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.

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 of 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. He is buried there with Keats and Shelley and one great Cornishman, Edward John Trelawny.

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 Antiquity'). His collection of documents is kept at the Royal Cornwall Museum in Truro.

[edit] References

Obituary The Times newspaper, 26 September 1933.
Article written by A. L. Rowse The Times, 2 October 1933
- Article by Arthur Quiller-Couch found in Essays in Cornish History published after the death of Henderson.

[edit] Selected works

The 109 Ancient Parishes of the Four Western Hundreds of Cornwall 1955
The Cornish Church Guide and Parochial History of Cornwall 1965
The Cornish Church Guide 1925 ISBN 0-85153-052-4
Cornish Saints with Gilbert Hunter Doble 1927
Cornwall: a Survey of its Coast, Moors, and Valleys 1930
The Ecclesiastical History of Western Cornwall 1962
Essays in Cornish history edited by A. L. Rowse and M.I. Henderson (his wife) 1935
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 H. 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 their meaning by R. Morton Nance, 1939
Mabe Church and Parish, Cornwall 1931
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