Fonds

Alexander Henderson was born on July 9, 1831, in Edinburgh. His parents, Thomas Henderson and Elizabeth Mack, were members of Scotland’s landed gentry. Alexander grew up on the large estate of Press Castle, southeast of Edinburgh. His father died when he was only nine, but his uncle Eagle Henderson soon took him under his wing and became a key figure in his education. It was Eagle, for example, who sent the youth to London in 1851 to visit the first ever world’s fair. Alexander was nevertheless destined for a career in business, like his father and grandfather before him, and on the family’s insistence he trained as an accountant, qualifying in 1852.

He married Agnes Elder Robertson in 1855, and on October 20, 1855, two weeks after the ceremony, the couple set sail from Liverpool aboard the Baltic. They arrived in New York on November 3, 1855, and then made their way to Montreal, their final destination. The couple would have nine children, only five of whom reached adulthood: Mary Robertson (Polly), Jane Cecilia (Oey), Thomas Robert (Tom), George William Simpson (Joe) and Margaret Evelyn (Daisy).

Alexander Henderson likely began taking photographs as an amateur in 1857. He became a regular contributor to the London-based journal The Photographic News soon after it began publication in 1858, displaying a particular interest in innovative photographic techniques.

The Hendersons adapted well to Montreal society, which allowed them to pursue a lifestyle much like the one they had enjoyed in Scotland. Alexander made the acquaintance of the photographer William Notman, another Scot who had arrived in Montreal only a few months after him. In 1860 Alexander and Agnes became members of the Art Association of Montreal, to which they would later donate photographs. It brought them into contact with such fellow members as the painter John A. Fraser and the principal of McGill College, Sir William Dawson.

In 1865 Henderson showed fourteen of his photographs at the Art Association of Montreal’s annual exhibition. That same year, he published his first major collection of landscape photographs in the form of an album, Canadian Views and Studies by an Amateur. This important publication encouraged him to devote himself full time to a career as a professional photographer.

Alexander Henderson opened a portrait studio on Phillips Square in 1866, but landscape and urban life nevertheless remained his favourite themes. Much of his work consists of street scenes like those included in Photographs of Montreal, published in 1869. His love of fishing, a regular pastime during his youth in Scotland, is reflected in many of his pictures, and the photographing of winter landscapes soon became a speciality. He took part in numerous exhibitions in Montreal and abroad, and in 1878 earned a silver medal in Paris.

In 1872 he embarked on a three-year project to document construction of the Intercolonial Railway (ICR). Then, in 1875, the ICR commissioned him to photograph the main structures along the line connecting Montreal to Eastern Quebec and the Maritimes. A couple of years later, in 1877,  the Quebec government hired him to photograph all the bridges between Montreal and Ottawa on the Quebec, Montreal, Ottawa and Occidental Railway (QMO&OR). In 1885 he undertook a contract in Western Canada for the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), and in 1892 he was appointed manager of its photography department.

After retiring in 1897, Henderson abandoned photography. He died in Montreal in 1913, and his work was gradually forgotten. The McCord Stewart Museum nonetheless possesses a large collection of his photographs.

Source:
For further information, see the chapter by Stanley G. Triggs, “Alexander Henderson, Landscape Photographer,” in Hélène Samson and Suzanne Sauvage, eds., Alexander Henderson – Art and Nature (Paris and Montreal: Éditions Hazan and McCord Museum, 2022), pp. 8-20.