James Alexander Leo Henderson died at his residence in South Kensington on February 4th, 1940, in his 66th year. He had only arrived home from Canada on Christmas Eve, and then was suffering from a serious illness.
He graduated from the Royal School of Mines, Freiberg, Saxony, with first class honours, and went on to the University of Leipzig, where in 1898 he was awarded the Ph.D., mainly for his valuable treatise on ‘Certain Transvaal Norites, Gabbros and Pyroxenites, and other South African Rocks’.
From 1899 to 1904 he was continuously engaged in connexion with the widespread interests of his father the late J.C.A. Henderson, and in that capacity he was occupied during the period mentioned in reporting on and managing mining properties in Great Britain (chiefly South Wales), Portuguese East Africa, South Africa (where he visited the principal mining districts), Australia; New Zealand, the United States, Canada, and Europe. Among other work he as actively associated with the establishment of the waterworks for Lorenço Marques and the Tasmanian Timber Corporation. In 1908, he became specially interested in the development of oil within the British Empire and organized the Maritime Oilfields, Ltd., to undertake exploration in New Brunswick, which resulted in the constant supply of natural gas to Moncton and the production of high-grade oil from the wells. He was Vice-Chairman and technical adviser to the operating company, the New Brunswick Gas and Oilfields, Ltd. While chiefly interested in this enterprise, he reported on property in Trinidad which led to the foundation of the Apex (Trinidad) Oilfields, Ltd., of which he was consultant to the time of his death.
Dr. Henderson was elected an Associate of the Institution in 1899, and transferred to Membership in1905. He was a Member of Council from 1912 to the date of his death, and Vice-President from 1928 to 1931.
Vol. 50, Trans IMM 1940-41, p.547
