Thomas Henderson (New Zealand politician)

The Honourable Thomas Henderson
Thomas Henderson in 1860
New Zealand Legislative Council
In office 25 July 1878 – 27 June 1886
Member of the New Zealand Parliament for Northern Division
In office 27 October 1855 – 5 June 1867
Member of the New Zealand Parliament for Waitemata
In office 8 February 1871 – 24 April 1874
Member of the Auckland Provincial Council
In office 26 October 1855 – 18 August 1857
In office 26 October 1855 – 26 November 1865
Personal details
Born	1810 Dundee, Scotland
Died	27 June 1886 (aged 75 or 76) Wellington, New Zealand
Spouse(s)	Catherine Macfarlane (m. 1834; d. 1867)
Relations	Thomas Macfarlane (brother-in-law)
Profession	Politician, miller, trader, blacksmith

Thomas Maxwell Henderson (1810 – 27 June 1886) was a New Zealand politician. He was one of the earliest settlers in Auckland. He was a significant entrepreneur, and the Auckland suburb of Henderson bears his name.

Henderson was born in Dundee, Scotland, in 1810. He was a blacksmith by trade and served his time as an engineer and machine maker. He met the Macfarlane siblings in Perth; John, Henry and Catherine (1811–1867). He married Catherine in 1834.

A family conference consisting all the above plus Ann Taylor (née Macfarlane) and her husband decided that they would answer to the advertisements for tradesmen and women to emigrate to New Zealand. They left Gravesend near London on 13 August 1840 on the barque London, arriving in Port Nicholson (Wellington) on 12 December. George Henderson, their 15 months old son, had died on the voyage. The Henderson and Macfarlane families went north, heading for Auckland at a time when not a single house had been erected yet.

He built the Commercial Hotel at a cost of £2000, and it was at the time the most pretentious building in Auckland. During the Flagstaff War, he employed about 300 Māori in gumdigging and was credited by other colonists as keeping them from joining Hone Heke. With his brother‑in‑law John Macfarlane, he formed the firm of Henderson and Macfarlane. They operated a mill from around 1847, after Governor Robert FitzRoy granted a land claim by them.

John Macfarlane died of a heart attack in 1860, and his place in the company was taken by his elder brother Thomas Macfarlane.

Henderson and Macfarlane owned the Circular Saw Line of vessels, which traded to Australia, China and America. The company also engaged in coconut plantation operations and trading in copra. In 1897 the company merged its trading and plantation business with that of the trading and plantation firm of John T. Arundel, to form the Pacific Islands Company Ltd. The company was based in London with its trading activities in the Pacific.