Thomas Henderson was a Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 Labour Co-operative

Labour Co-operative

Labour and Co-operative describes those candidates in British elections standing on behalf of both the Labour Party and the Co-operative Party, based on a national agreement between the two parties....

 politician.

Henderson was born in Burntisland

Burntisland

Burntisland is a town and former royal burgh in Fife, Scotland on the Firth of Forth. According to an estimate taken in 2008, the town has a population of 5,940....

, Fife

Fife

Fife is a council area and former county of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries to Perth and Kinross and Clackmannanshire...

. He was apprenticed as a cabinet maker at the age of 11, but was later to work in the Clydeside and Belfast

Belfast

Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...

 shipyards.

After nearly thirty years in Belfast, he moved to Glasgow

Glasgow

Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

 where he was elected to the city council in 1919 as an Independent Labour Party

Independent Labour Party

The Independent Labour Party was a socialist political party in Britain established in 1893. The ILP was affiliated to the Labour Party from 1906 to 1932, when it voted to leave...

 councillor.

At the 1922 general election

United Kingdom general election, 1922

The United Kingdom general election of 1922 was held on 15 November 1922. It was the first election held after most of the Irish counties left the United Kingdom to form the Irish Free State, and was won by Andrew Bonar Law's Conservatives, who gained an overall majority over Labour, led by John...

 he was elected as Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 (MP) for Glasgow Tradeston

Glasgow Tradeston (UK Parliament constituency)

Glasgow Tradeston was a burgh constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1885 until 1955. It elected one Member of Parliament using the first-past-the-post voting system.-Boundaries:...

, becoming the first Co-operative MP in Scotland. He served on the executive of the National Co-operative Party. With the formation of the First Labour Government

First Labour Government

The First Labour Government of the United Kingdom lasted from January to November 1924. The Labour Party, under James Ramsay MacDonald, had failed to win the general election of December 1923, with 191 seats, although the combined Opposition tally exceeded that of the Conservative government...

 he was given the post of Comptroller of the Household

Comptroller of the Household

The Comptroller of the Household is an ancient position in the English royal household, currently the second-ranking member of the Lord Steward's department, and often a cabinet member. He was an ex officio member of the Board of Green Cloth, until that body was abolished in the reform of the local...

 and government whip

Whip (politics)

A whip is an official in a political party whose primary purpose is to ensure party discipline in a legislature. Whips are a party's "enforcers", who typically offer inducements and threaten punishments for party members to ensure that they vote according to the official party policy...

 for Scotland.

There was a large swing against Labour at the 1931 election

United Kingdom general election, 1931

The United Kingdom general election on Tuesday 27 October 1931 was the last in the United Kingdom not held on a Thursday. It was also the last election, and the only one under universal suffrage, where one party received an absolute majority of the votes cast.The 1931 general election was the...

, and Henderson lost his seat. He was appointed a Commander of the British Empire

Order of the British Empire

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

 in the same year. He regained the seat at the 1935 general election

United Kingdom general election, 1935

The United Kingdom general election held on 14 November 1935 resulted in a large, though reduced, majority for the National Government now led by Conservative Stanley Baldwin. The greatest number of MPs, as before, were Conservative, while the National Liberal vote held steady...

, and held it until 1945, when he retired.

Thomas Henderson died in a Glasgow hospital in January 1960, aged 92.