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Auction: 19020 - British and World Historic and Commemorative Medals and Tokens: e-Auction 3
Lot: 192

"A pioneer of land exploration in the fledgling British territory of Southern Australia". Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society, AR Prize Medal, by W Wyon, AWARDED TO JAS: HENDERSON, C. E. 1869. FOR TRAVERSING INSTRUMENT, 45mm, 36.86g, once lightly cleaned, now retoning, very fine, and with an important association to the earliest histories of cartography in the new British territories of Australasia

Dr Leibfried collection


James Henderson (1821-1903), was a pioneering cartographer at the forefront of land exploration in the fledgling British territory of Southern Australia in the 1840s. Born a scion of the Henderson family of Perthshire, was born on 15 October 1821, the son of the late Lieutenant-Colonel George Henderson, Royal Engineers. Both his father and his uncle, Admiral Robert Henderson, would serve with distinction under Wellington and Nelson respectively.


At the tender age of 18, it was decided that James should travel to Australia for health reasons. He was seconded to a party of sappers and miners of the Royal Engineers under Captain Charles Edward Frome which engaged in extensive survey around South Australia, where the demand for land had traditionally outpaced the rate of government surveying. Most of their time was spent exploring the country beyond established settlements, such as to the shores of Lakes Albert and Alexandrina. The future of southern Australian settlement depended entirely on the success of such surveys at this time. The State Library of Southern Australia also holds the journal of another of Henderson's explorations to Lake Frome in 1843 (see: https://digital.collections.slsa.sa.gov.au/nodes/view/3471#idx32647).


His father's mining interests back in England prompted James' return, eventually allowing him to settle as a Mining Engineer in Truro. Henderson approached life with ardour and vigour often belying his true age. He was fondly remembered for working long hours during the day underground, and at night be found plotting trigonometrical observations. During his long career he obtained several accolades, including a bronze medal for mining plans at the International Exhibition {1862}, another from the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society in 1868 for a plan of the Botallack mine, and indeed this silver award the following year for an improved dial on a his traversing apparatus.

He was also the inventor of the "rapid traverser" which came to be much utilised in the exploration of dense forests and undergrowth in West Africa at the end of the 19th Century.

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