George Henderson was a scholar of Scottish Gaelic.

Life

Henderson was born on 18 February 1866 in Heughden, Kiltarlity

Kiltarlity

Kiltarlity is a small village in the Highland council area of Scotland. It is west of Inverness, and south of Beauly, on the Bruiach Burn. It has a population of under 1000 people, and a primary school, Tomnacross Primary...

, Inverness-shire

Inverness-shire

The County of Inverness or Inverness-shire was a general purpose county of Scotland, with the burgh of Inverness as the county town, until 1975, when, under the Local Government Act 1973, the county area was divided between the two-tier Highland region and the unitary Western Isles. The Highland...

 in Scotland. He went to Raining's School in Inverness

Inverness

Inverness is a city in the Scottish Highlands. It is the administrative centre for the Highland council area, and is regarded as the capital of the Highlands of Scotland...

, where he was taught by Alexander Bain

Alexander Bain

Alexander Bain was a Scottish philosopher and educationalist in the British school of empiricism who was a prominent and innovative figure in the fields of psychology, linguistics, logic, moral philosophy and education reform...

, a lexicographer of Scottish. He then attended the University of Edinburgh

University of Edinburgh

The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...

, studying English literature, philosophy and Celtic. After graduating in 1888, he became the examiner for the MA in Celtic. He then worked in South Uist

South Uist

South Uist is an island of the Outer Hebrides in Scotland. In the 2001 census it had a usually resident population of 1,818. There is a nature reserve and a number of sites of archaeological interest, including the only location in Great Britain where prehistoric mummies have been found. The...

 in 1892, collecting oral Gaelic literature, before travelling to Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 in 1893 and obtaining his doctorate. On his return in 1896, he studied at Jesus College, Oxford

Jesus College, Oxford

Jesus College is one of the colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It is in the centre of the city, on a site between Turl Street, Ship Street, Cornmarket Street and Market Street...

 and obtained a BLitt on Scottish Gaelic dialects. He married in Iffley

Iffley

Iffley is a village in Oxfordshire, England, within the boundaries of the city of Oxford, between Cowley and the estates of Rose Hill and Donnington, and in proximity to the River Thames . Its most notable feature is its original and largely unchanged Norman church, St Mary the Virgin, which has a...

 near Oxford in May 1901 before his ordination as a Church of Scotland

Church of Scotland

The Church of Scotland, known informally by its Scots language name, the Kirk, is a Presbyterian church, decisively shaped by the Scottish Reformation....

 minister in June 1901. He served the parish of Eddrachillis, Sutherland

Sutherland

Sutherland is a registration county, lieutenancy area and historic administrative county of Scotland. It is now within the Highland local government area. In Gaelic the area is referred to according to its traditional areas: Dùthaich 'IcAoidh , Asainte , and Cataibh...

 until 1906 when he was appointed as a lecturer in Celtic at the University of Glasgow

University of Glasgow

The University of Glasgow is the fourth-oldest university in the English-speaking world and one of Scotland's four ancient universities. Located in Glasgow, the university was founded in 1451 and is presently one of seventeen British higher education institutions ranked amongst the top 100 of the...

. He had in the interim obtained a collection of Gaelic folksongs and tunes from the Isle of Skye, collected by Frances Tolmie, and these were published by the Folksong Society in 1911 upon his recommendation. He died on 26 June 1912.

Works

Henderson had a large output of published material, although his work was sometimes inconsistent. His principal works include the following:

• John Morison's Dain Iain Ghobha (1893–96), a two-volume collection and edition (with a memoir) of religious Gaelic verse.
• Publications in Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie
  Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie
  Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie ' is an academic journal of Celtic studies, which was founded in 1896 by the German scholars Kuno Meyer and Ludwig Christian Stern and first appeared in 1897. It is the first journal devoted exclusively to Celtic languages and literature and the oldest...
  
  on Scottish Gaelic dialects (the result of his BLitt at Oxford)
• Leabhar nan Gleann (1898)
• An edition of Fled Bricrend for the Irish Texts Society (1899)
• The Norse Influence on Celtic Scotland (1910)
• Survivals in Belief among the Celts (1911)
• Arthurian Motifs in Gadhelic Literature (1912)