Joseph Henderson was born on 10 June 1832 in Stanley, Perthshire, He was the third of four boys. When he was about six, the family moved to Edinburgh and took up residence in Broad Street. The two older boys joined their father, also Joseph, as stone masons.

Joseph’s father died when Joseph was eleven leaving his mother, Marjory Slater, in straightened circumstances. As a result, Joseph and his twin brother, James, were sent to work at an early age and the thirteen-year-old Joseph was apprenticed to a draper/hosier. At the same time, he attended part-time classes at the Trustees’ Academy, Edinburgh.

At the age of seventeen, on 2 February 1849, he enrolled as an art student in the Academy. From the census of 1851, Marjory, Jo...