Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Henwood, William Jory
HENWOOD, WILLIAM JORY (1805–1875), mineralogist, was born at Perron Wharf, Cornwall, 16 Jan. 1805. He came of an old Cornish family settled at Levalsa in St. Ewe; but his grandfather having lost considerably in the Huel Mexico, the first Cornish silver mine, Henwood's father, John Henwood, and, from 1822 to 1827, Henwood himself, acted as clerk to Messrs. Fox & Co. of Perron Wharf. While here he began the study of metalliferous deposits, his first paper being read before the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall in 1826. From 1832 to 1838 Henwood was assay-master and supervisor of tin for the duchy of Cornwall, and in 1837 he received the Telford medal of the Institution of Civil Engineers for a paper on pumping-engines. He became a fellow of the Geological Society in 1828, and of the Royal Society in 1840. In 1843 he took charge of the Gongo-Soco mines in Brazil, where he paid much attention to bettering the condition of the slaves. In 1855 Henwood proceeded to India to report on the metals of Kumson and Gurhwal for the Indian government; and in 1858, his health having been impaired, he retired from active work and settled at Penzance. In 1869 he was elected president of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, and in 1874 he was awarded the Murchison medal of the Geological Society. Henwood died unmarried at Penzance, 5 Aug. 1875.
In his earlier researches Henwood was assisted by a subscription raised by the gentry of Cornwall, his results being published by the local geological society. The fifth volume of their ‘Transactions,’ 1843, 512 pp., with 125 plates, is entirely devoted to his observations ‘On the Metalliferous Deposits of Cornwall and Devon, … Subterranean Temperature … Water … and Electric Currents,’ and the still larger eighth volume (1871) contained his account of foreign deposits. Fifty-five papers by him are enumerated in the Royal Society's ‘Catalogue’ (iii. 298–300), and some additional ones are mentioned in Boase and Courtney's ‘Bibliotheca Cornubiensis.’ The name ‘Henwoodite’ has been bestowed in his honour upon a hydrous phosphate of aluminium and copper.
[Geological Mag. 1875, p. 431; Proceedings of the Geological Soc. 1875–6, p. 82.]