Constituency : Merioneth 1910-45
Henry took over from Osmond Williams at Merioneth.
Henry was a schoolmaster's son from Ruthin. He was educated at the Board School and Academy at Towyn. He joined the ironmongery business of his uncles and eventually became its managing director. He became one of the first members of Merionethshire County Council in 1889. He bought a slate quarry and the Talyllyn Railway in 1909 to save the local area from unemployment. He is immortalised in the railway books of Rev W Awdry as Sir Handel Brown, owner of the Skarloey line. He was a Presbyterian.
Henry was unopposed in December 1910.
Henry disliked the idea of conscription but was eventually persuaded to support the government.
Never the most robust individual, Henry was minded to retire in 1918 : "I have a happy home, heaps of work and politics are not inviting to a man who plays the game cleanly". He was persuaded to stay on and despite not having the coupon., he was elected unopposed.He was the only Asquithian to hold a Welsh seat after the 1918 election. He wanted the coalition to collapse.
Henry never liked Lloyd George and was sceptical about the new policies launched in 1929 preferring to stand as a moderate. He was no more convinced by the New Deal policies of 1935. Throughout the thirties he was pessimistic about both the nation and the state of politics. In 1934 he tried to persuade Ellis Davies not to defect to Labour,
Henry held on comfortably at every election until he stood down in 1945.
Henry was knighted in 1937.
Henry wrote a number of hymn tunes.
He died in 1950 aged 86.
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