In his later years Henson's lifelong sense of loneliness was compounded by the growing deafness of his wife, making their conversation difficult. He found some solace in the friendship of her companion, Fearne Booker, who lived with the Hensons for more than thirty years. He occupied a considerable part of his retirement writing a substantial work of autobiography, published in three volumes under the title "Retrospect of an Unimportant Life". Both at the time and subsequently many of his friends and admirers regretted his publishing the work; they thought he had done his reputation a disservice. Despite what Williams calls the "peculiar interest and vivacity" of the books, his survey of his many campaigns and controversies, seemed to others to be self-justifying and wilfully to deny many changes of stance that he had manifestly made during his career. In Williams's view the posthumous publication of Henson's edited letters were a better legacy: "delightful in both form and content, and, barbed though they often are, they do him fuller justice". He was offered the masonic position of Provincial Grand Master in his retirement, but declined it, believing himself too old.