This is the 17th article in a series of columns written by Alan Henderson about Deniliquin district historical events and issues. Alan’s grandfather purchased ‘Warragoon’ on the Finley Road in 1912. Alan was born in the Deniliquin Hospital in 1944 but moved to Canberra in 1967. In retirement he has written a family history, Boots, Gold and Wool, and will share some of his research in this local history column.
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Henderson is a Scottish name. We have a clan and a tartan.
My great-grandfather emigrated from Scotland in 1853.
His parents had married in 1822 in Argyll, east of Oban.
My great-grandfather undertook an apprenticeship as a bootmaker and acquired a boot shop in Glasgow.
He resumed that career on the Victorian goldfields, with boot shops in various towns, including Ballarat, Talbot, and Inglewood.
He selected land east of Echuca in 1865.
This was not unusual.
Scots emigrated in proportionately greater numbers than most Europeans; and in Victoria, a disproportionate number became farmers.
My grandfather, John H Henderson, inherited a one third share of the Echuca property.
He sold his share in 1911 and, in 1912, acquired Warragoon on the Finley Road and resided there permanently from 1921.
In April 1928 - accompanied by my grandmother Alice and their youngest daughter May (later May Metcalfe) - my grandfather joined the so-called Scottish Delegation aboard the Hobson’s Bay in Melbourne for a trip to Europe.
The Scottish Delegation, comprising more than 600 people from every state, was a private mission to advertise Australia and the pastoral and farming communities represented on the delegation.
John H Henderson and James Dorward, the owner of Elimdale, a property west of Deniliquin, represented the Deniliquin Chamber of Commerce.
The eight-page pamphlet prepared for them to distribute at official gatherings in London and Scotland was reproduced in The Independent newspaper.
The key message is captured in the extract provided with this column.
The pamphlet included numerous photographs of buildings and scenes around the town and district, as well as livestock and cropping activities, and explained that “Deniliquin [is] set in the heart of the most famous stud sheep country in the world, [and] is the official and commercial centre of a very prosperous pastoral and agricultural district … [a] Mixed Farmer’s Paradise”.
The pamphlet foreshadowed irrigation water sourced from the Hume Dam and, in regard to the town, noted that “Deniliquin has beautiful tree-shaded streets, public buildings that compare favourably with those of any other town of its size in Australia, and every facility for sportsmen, whether with rod and gun or in the athletic field. It has the finest 18-hole country golf course in the state (in charge of a professional), three racing clubs, excellent hotels, primary and secondary schools…”.
I guess a similar pamphlet today might mention that there are facilities for sportswomen, as well as men!
The delegation arrived in London on May 18, 1928 and, after about a week, visited Edinburgh and Glasgow for a week each and then briefer visits to Stirling, Dundee, Aberdeen, and Inverness.
They travelled in two special trains that included “exhibition cars filled with Australian produce”, which was transferred for display in shop windows in the cities they visited.
The delegation was accorded civic receptions and greeted with great fanfare at each location, concluding on June 15 in Inverness.
Following the promotional tour, my grandparents toured Agyll in Scotland, visiting Oban on the west coast and other locations in search of Henderson ancestors, but without success.
In the absence of abundant online family history resources, this was probably a common outcome.
Notwithstanding this disappointment, my grandmother eventually named a property she acquired east of Warragoon, Oban.
On the advice of the Reverend CEO Keays, the minister at St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, in the 1930s, my parents sent my brother to a Presbyterian church school in Victoria. In due course, I followed him.
In the school cadet corps, we wore kilts.
My son wore a Henderson tartan kilt at his wedding.
A Scottish name, a Scottish great-grandfather, a Presbyterian schooling where, like my son, I was, occasionally decked out in a kilt; a property Oban remaining in the extended family, publishing a history of my Scottish forbears, and occasionally wearing a Henderson tartan scarf in the Canberra cold, it follows that my heritage is Scottish, right?
Well, no!
In 2011 when I commenced seriously exploring my family history, I eventually identified the heritage of my other seven great-grandparents.
The count is one Scottish, three English and four Irish!
The Irish emigrated in even greater numbers than the Scottish.
On their trip in 1928, my paternal grandfather did meet some relatives of his mother in Hull, England, and they also visited Ireland and met some of my grandmother’s relatives.
On my mother’s side of the family, I vaguely knew they were from England and Ireland, but it was seldom discussed.
Our heritage seems to be discretionary.
If it is the name that counts: My name is Henderson, my heritage is Scottish.
If numbers count, seven out of eight is a substantial proportion: I am a fake Scot.
I will settle for third generation Australian and stop worrying about it.
Historical column contributor