[3] He studied French under Professor G. G. Nicholson and Gladys Marks, and German under the Australian poet, scholar and literary critic Christopher Brennan.

In December 1945 Henning was appointed as the McCaughey Chair of French which Professor G. G. Nicholson had vacated after many years in that position.

Association of University Women Graduates[7] and staging a "well balanced" production of Giraudoux's The Trojan War Will Not Take Place.

[9][10] Henning found himself professor at a time of "huge expansion of student and staff numbers"[5] in Sydney University's French department.

Kenneth Dutton has argued that Henning, although being shy and apparently aloof, was a "full of genuine concern for his students" who formed an entire generation of French scholars", many of whom would later occupy senior positions in universities "in Australia and overseas".