Constituency : Holmfirth 1885-1912
Henry won the new seat of Holmfirth.
Henry came from a Congregationalist family who owned the Sheffield Smelting Compny. He was educated at the West of England Dissenters Proprietary School in Taunton and University College, London. n 1859 he married the daughter of Charles Cowan, MP for Edinburgh. He spent the first fourteen years of working life as a farmer before moving into the family firm.
Henry was a radical in favour of temperance, Home Rule , disestablishment of the church, non-sectarian education and the destruction of the opium trade. Largely as a result of disgust at the compromises in the 1870 Education Act, Henry broke with the main body of Sheffield Liberals and set up the Sheffield Reform Association to promote a more advanced brand. Henry invited Chamberlain to stand there in 1874 but the attempt was unsuccessful. Henry then came in from the cold and became secretary of the Sheffield Liberal Association in 1875.
Henry held office in many campaigning organisations concerned with repealing the Contagious Diseases Act which he regarded as immoral and oppressive and curtailing the opium trade. He sat on the Sheffield School Board.
In 1895 he served on the Royal Commission on Opium and wrote a minority report on its findings.
Henry was an anti-imperialist who fiercely opposed the Boer War describing it as "a crime against humanity and a great political blunder". He formed a Sheffield branch of the Soutyh Africa Conciliation Committee. The campaigner Emily Hobhouse tried to persuade him to visit South Africa and report back.
Henry rebuked Lloyd George for not supporting Campbell-Bannerman's amendment to the King's Speech in 1902.
In later life Henry became more of a Quaker. He wanted fornication to be made illegal.
Henry was involved in the Liberal land campaign before he stood down in 1912.
He died in 1914 aged 81. His son Cecil became a Labour MP.
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