365 miles of line for joining the Balearic Islands with Spain. He made several cables of shorter length in 1861, and in 1863 made 1,651 miles of heavy cable to the order of the Indian government for submergence in the Persian Gulf. From a very early date at these works he commenced to galvanise wire and other ironware, and soon after set up machinery for drawing his own wire. Later on he began rolling his own iron and making steel wire, and covered copper wire with indiarubber. Altogether he manufactured here close upon fourteen thousand miles of submarine cable. Besides these establishments, which covered some eighteen acres of ground, and where he at one time employed as many as two thousand men, Henley had ironworks in Wales and collieries. In the height of this work he employed three ships, all fitted for cable laying. For some six years he was making profits of 80,000l. a year. The Welsh ironworks were the beginning of misfortunes, and in 1874 Henley failed for about 500,000l. In 1876 a limited liability company was formed to carry on the work in London, under the title of W. T. Henley & Co. (Lim.), of which Henley was managing director, but this eventually was wound up, the bulk of the ground and works becoming the property of the Telegraph Construction Company. A portion of the works was reopened in 1880 as W. T. Henley's Telegraph Works Company (Limited), of which Henley was a director up to the time of his death. At these works he manufactured his ozokerited indiarubber core, which was one of his latest patents.
Henley died at Chesterton House, Plaistow, Essex, on 13 Dec. 1882, in the sixty-ninth year of his age (Times, 15 Dec. 1882, obit. col. and p. 5), and was buried on the 18th at Kensal Green cemetery. His early struggles enabled him to thoroughly understand his workmen, who were devoted to him. Even when making large profits he lived in great simplicity, and was constantly at his works. As soon as he made money he spent it on increase of plant.
[Engineer, 22 Dec. 1882, p. 471; Electrician, 23 Dec. 1882, p. 136.]
HENN, THOMAS RICE (1849–1880), lieutenant royal engineers, third son of Thomas Rice Henn of Paradise Hill, co. Clare, esq., J.P. and D.L., recorder of Galway, by Jane Isabella, daughter of the Right Hon. Francis Blackburne, lord chancellor of Ireland, was born in Dublin on 2 Nov. 1849. He was educated at Windermere College, and entered the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, second in the list of successful candidates, at the age of seventeen. On 7 July 1869 he obtained a commission in the royal engineers, and after the usual course of study at Chatham was sent to India. He was posted to the Bombay sappers and miners at Kirkee, the second company of which he commanded in the Afghan war of 1880. He was present in the Bolan Pass, and also at Kandahar, when he was appointed brigade major of royal engineers. In July 1880 he took part in the advance of the brigade under General Burrows to the Helmund, and fell in the disastrous battle of Maiwand. When the battle became a rout Henn and his sappers were alongside the battery of horse artillery. Its commander, Major Blackwood, had been mortally wounded, and Captain Slade, who succeeded him, ordered the battery to limber up and retire. Henn, already wounded in the arm, successfully covered the operation with his handful of men, firing volleys upon the crowd of Ghazis pouring down upon them. Henn then fell steadily back, carrying the wounded Blackwood, and following the line of retreat of the 66th regiment across the nullah to a garden on the other side. Behind the wall of the garden Henn and the remnant of his company of sappers, supported by a gallant party of the 66th and some native grenadiers, took up their stand. Here they held the enemy at bay, fighting till every man was killed to cover the retreat of their comrades. Around the spot were afterwards found, lightly buried, the bodies of Henn and fourteen sappers, forty-six men of the 66th regiment, and twenty-three native grenadiers. In General Primrose's despatch of 1 Oct. 1880 he describes, on the authority of an eye-witness—an artillery colonel of Ayub Khan's army—the gallant stand made by this little party. A stained-glass window in Henn's memory has been placed in Rochester Cathedral by the corps of royal engineers.
[Despatches; Corps Records; Shadbolt's Afghan Campaigns of 1878–80.]
HENNEDY, ROGER (1809–1877), botanist, was born in August 1809 at Carrickfergus, near Belfast, but was of Scottish extraction, his father being descended from the Kennedys of Ailsa Craig, Ayrshire, who changed their name to Hennedy in Ireland. His mother was born at Paisley. On leaving school he was apprenticed to cutting blocks for a firm of calico-printers. His master was of a tyrannical disposition. Hennedy ran away before his time was out, and somehow managed to get employment in a firm of calico-printers at Rutherglen, close to Glasgow, where he finished his time. In 1832
