Thomas Henderson was born in Dundee on 28 December 1798. Interested at an early age in astronomy and mathematics, he came to the notice of the well-known polymath and scientist Thomas Young (1773-1829), who had become Secretary to the Board of Longitude and superintendant of the HM Nautical Almanac Office in 1818.
Henderson was sent to the Board of Longitude’s Royal Observatory at the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, where in 1832 and 1833 he explored the idea of using parallax to measure the distance from the earth to the bright star Alpha Centauri, continuing to work on his calculations after returning home because of ill health — but ultimately failing to publish his findings until after a similar discovery by the German Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel.
In 1834, Henderson became the first Astronomer Royal for Scotland, based at the Calton Hill Observatory, where he worked until his death at home at 1 Hillside Crescent on 23 November 1844.
There is a plaque outside his house and a memorial in the external wall of the City Observatory. He was buried in Greyfriars Kirkyard.
See also, the article in Wikipedia.