Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Edmund Yeamans Walcott Henderson KCB (19 April 1821 – 8 December 1896) was an officer in the British Army who was Comptroller-General of Convicts in Western Australia from 1850 to 1863, Home Office Surveyor-General of Prisons from 1863 to 1869, and Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, head of the London Metropolitan Police, from 1869 to 1886.

In this service, his fellow commissioner lost his life, and Henderson barely escaped the same fate having been five days without food,[1] and was in charge of surveying the western half of the boundary between Canada and New Brunswick, which had been ceded to Britain by the United States, until November 1848, when he returned to England with his new wife, Mary Murphy, whom he had married in Canada.

Henderson secured lodging for the convicts at a ware house owned by Captain Scott, the harbour master.

Henderson then began construction of a place for the warders to stay and in time the Convict Establishment, later known as Fremantle Prison.

He thought that flogging as a punishment did more harm than good, and might be abolished except in rare cases, and that putting men in chains was useless and aggravating.

Henderson immediately endeared himself to his men by abolishing or relaxing some of the petty regulations imposed by Mayne and his first colleague, Sir Charles Rowan.

Henderson clashed with Receiver Maurice Drummond over an increase in pay for his men, a rivalry which was to continue for the rest of his tenure.

The authorities decided, against his advice, to reduce pensions and this, coupled with low wages, led to the first police strike in 1872.

When the Fenian bombing campaign opened in 1883, he left its handling largely to his assistants, particularly Howard Vincent, James Monro and Robert Anderson.