Admiral Sir Nigel Stuart Henderson, GBE, KCB, DL (1 August 1909 – 2 August 1993) was a Royal Navy officer who served as Chairman of the NATO Military Committee from 1968 to 1971.
Henderson joined the Royal Navy in 1927.[1] He served in the Second World War as a gunnery officer.[1] After the war he became Naval Attaché in Rome and then, from 1951, commanded the patrol vessel HMS Protector.[1]
Henderson was appointed Commanding Officer at the Royal Naval Air Station at Bramcote in 1952 and was Captain of the cruiser HMS Kenya from 1955.[1] He became Vice Naval Deputy and then Naval Deputy to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe in 1957 and Director General of Training at the Admiralty in 1960.[1] In 1962 he was made Commander-in-Chief, Plymouth,[1] and on 14 August 1963 he was promoted to the rank of admiral.[2] He was made Head of the British Defence Staff in Washington, D.C. and UK Military Representative to NATO in 1965 and then Chairman of the NATO Military Committee in 1968.[1] He retired in 1971.[1]
Writing in 1974 Henderson expressed concern over a general lack of awareness about "Western Europe and indeed of all NATO countries being dependent very largely on Middle East oil".[3]
Henderson married Catherine Mary Maitland in 1939. They had three children, a son and two daughters. In 1959 Lady Henderson inherited the estate of Hensol House near Castle Douglas from her godmother Helen, Marchioness of Ailsa. The couple retired there in 1971.[4][5]
In retirement Henderson spearheaded the effort to restore the Scottish birthplace of John Paul Jones at Arbigland back to its original 1747 condition.[6] He was also a Deputy Lieutenant of the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright[7] and a Patron of the Ten Tors Challenge held each year on Dartmoor.[8]