Fred Henderson

James Frederick Henderson (February 1867 – 18 July 1957) was an English socialist writer and journalist, and a Labour Party politician. Early life Born in Norwich, he was the son of James Alexander Henderson, a clothier. He was educated at the city's Old Presbyterian School, the Belfast Mercantile Academy and Owens College, Manchester. He first worked as a journalist for The Star newspaper in London, where he met T. P. O'Connor, George Bernard Shaw and William Morris, and became a committed socialist. He corresponded with Morris from Bradford. In Norwich, Henderson was involved in a branch of the Socialist League there in 1886. In the following year he was arrested on 14 January with Charles Mowbray, and sentenced to four months imprisonment for incitement to riot after groups of unemployed workers looted food shops. He was detained in Norwich Gaol where he was one of the last prisoners in England to be put to work on the penal treadmill. In August 1887 Michael McCartan put a question in the House of Commons about Henderson's July arrest by a mounted police constable, replied to by Henry Matthews. Cunninghame Graham also involved himself in the question. In 1887 Henderson annoyed Mowbray by claiming a leadership role, of the "Anarchist Group". By 1888 matters were different, when Henderson joined forces with John Lincoln Mahon to organise a "Labour Party". His name was linked in 1889 to Mahon's as labour agitators in hostile comment from St Stephen's Review. It referred to the London dock strike, 1889, and Henry Cecil Raikes as Postmaster-General resisting unionisation of postal workers. A damning unsigned newspaper article from the time of the 1893 scandal conceded that Henderson "had a glib tongue and took a useful part in the work of administration at the time of the great dock strike." He entered local politics in 1890 when he was elected to the Norwich Board of Guardians.