Lieutenant General Sir David Henderson, (11 August 1862 – 17 August 1921) was the senior leader of British military aviation during the First World War, having previously established himself as the leading authority on tactical intelligence in the British Army. He served as the commander of the Royal Flying Corps in the field during the first year of the First World War and was instrumental in establishing the Royal Air Force as an independent service. After the war Henderson was the first Director-General of the League of Red Cross Societies. Early and family life David Henderson was born in Glasgow on 11 August 1862 into a ship-owning family. His father, also called David Henderson, was a joint owner of the Clydeside ship builders David and William Henderson and Company. Henderson entered the University of Glasgow in 1877 at the age of just 15. While there, he read engineering and in his fourth year (1880–1881) he studied civil engineering and mechanics as well as office and field work in engineering. For reasons now unknown, he left the university to train for a military career at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, instead of graduating from Glasgow. In 1895, Henderson married Henrietta Caroline Dundas (11 December 1867 – 14 April 1959), who was appointed as a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1919. Their children included Ian Henry David Henderson, who also joined the Royal Flying Corps, but Ian Henderson predeceased his parents, dying in a flying accident in June 1918. Military career Following officer training at the Royal Military College Sandhurst, Henderson was commissioned into the British Army on 25 August 1883, joining the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders as a lieutenant. He was promoted to captain on 26 February 1890, and graduated from Staff College, Camberley in 1895. Subsequently, he was a member of the Nile Expedition of 1898, following which he received a brevet promotion to the rank of major on 16 November 1898. Three months before the outbreak of the Second Boer War Henderson was posted to Natal as an intelligence officer. During the opening stage of the war he took part and was wounded at the Siege of Ladysmith. He received a brevet promotion to lieutenant-colonel on 29 November 1900. In February 1901, the commander-in-chief in South Africa, Lord Kitchener, appointed Henderson his director of military intelligence, a post he held until the end