Family background
Robert Theophilus Henderson was born in Sydney on 25 October 1837, the son of Robert Henderson and Elizabeth Joselin Shepherd. His brother Charles Henderson served on Macdonaldtown and Alexandria councils as alderman and mayor. Robert T. Henderson died at his home in Waverley on 16 February 1909, aged 72 years.
Occupation & interests
Robert Henderson was chair of the Horticultural Society of NSW. With his brother Charles, he ran Alexandria’s Camellia Grove nursery which had been established by their father, on four acres at the corner of Henderson Road and Park Street in Erskineville. On his death, Joseph Maiden, the director of the Botanic Gardens said ‘he was peerless in Australia for knowledge and work achieved in regard to Dahlias’.
Local government service
Robert Theophilus Henderson was an alderman on the Alexandria Council in 1868. He was also alderman on Newtown Council in 1871-76, representing O’Connell Ward.
References
Biographical information for this alderman was originally researched by Mark Matheson for the Newtown Project Website.
‘Borough of Alexandria’, Sydney Mail, 10 October 1868, p. 5, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/166797334
‘Saturday half-holiday’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 19 February 1909 p. 6, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article15037407
‘Robert Henderson, Flower Lover’, Northern Star, 23 February 1909, p. 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article72208671
‘The Late Robert T Henderson’, The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser, 10 March 1909, p. 32, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article163289273