In the same year he married his first wife, Beatrice Mary Davenport Abell, daughter of Sir Westcott Abell, K.B.E., the celebrated naval architect and surveyor, and Professor of Naval Architecture at Armstrong College, an affiliated college of the University of Durham.
Born in Glasgow on 23 July 1903, David Henderson subsequently attended the Hamilton Academy, described by Sir Tam Dalyell, former Father of the House of Commons, as "a remarkable school" with "a formidable academic reputation." Matriculating at the University of Glasgow, reading agricultural bacteriology and enrolling at the West of Scotland Agricultural College, Henderson graduated in 1926, subsequently being appointed a lecturer in bacteriology at King’s College, Durham University, where, in 1930, he was awarded an Master of Science degree for his work on anaerobic infection in lambs. In 1934 Henderson was to be awarded a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of London for his thesis, ‘Studies on the spore-bearing anaerobes with experiments on active and passive immunity.’.
In 1931, awarded a Carnegie Research Fellowship, Henderson embarked on research at the Lister Institute of Preventative Medicine, London, and was subsequently awarded a Beit Memorial Research Fellowship for the years 1932-1935. Engaged in research work on immunology and the effects of the administering of toxins via aerosols at the Lister Institute’s Serum Department at Elstree, by summer of 1940 Henderson was to find himself seconded to the Ministry of Supply and working between the Lister Institute and the government’s Chemical Defence Experimental Establishment, at Porton Down in Wiltshire. In October 1940, on the instruction of the War Council a team of microbiologists was assembled, including David Henderson, to research use and protection against bacterial agents.
Also in 1940, David Henderson was awarded the Doctor of Science degree by the University of London.
In January 1946 Henderson had been appointed Director of the Microbiological Research Department by the Minister of Supply and an advisory panel had been assembled under the chairmanship of Maurice Hankey. Under Henderson"s direction new laboratories at Porton Down were built between 1948 and 1951 and these and the work done there by Henderson and his team gained an international reputation in microbiology, recognized in the award to Henderson of the Central Bank in 1957 and his election to the Royal Society in 1959, in which year the Ministry of Supply was dissolved and Henderson’s department was to come within the remit of the War Office.
He wrote and co-wrote numerous published scientific papers during his career. David Willis Wilson Henderson died on 16 August 1968.
1930 - Master of Science degree by Durham University 1934 - Doctor of Philosophy by the University of London 1940 - Doctor of Science degree by the University of London 1946 - United States. Medal of Freedom, Bronze Palm 1957 - Companion of The Most Honourable Order of the Bath 1959 - Fellowship of the Royal Society.
Royal Society]
David Henderson was a founding member of the Society for General Microbiology, a member of its committee from 1947-1951, and in 1963 was elected its President.
