Henson was translated to Durham – England's most senior diocese after Canterbury, York and London – in October 1920. The appointment was challenging: the area was in grave economic difficulty, with the important coal-mining industry in a crisis caused by falling industrial demand for coal in the years after the war. Ecclesiastically there was potential for friction, as the Dean of Durham, James Welldon, who had once been a bishop himself, was temperamentally and politically at odds with his new superior, given to making public statements that Henson found infuriating. Welldon, in Henson's view, "could neither speak with effect nor be silent with dignity". They clashed on several occasions, most conspicuously when Welldon, a strong admirer of prohibition, publicly criticised Henson's tolerant views on the consumption of alcohol. Relations between the Deanery and Auckland Castle, the bishop's official residence, improved markedly in April 1933 when Cyril Alington, the Head Master of Eton from 1917 to 1933, succeeded Welldon. Alington was almost universally loved, and though he and Henson differed on points of ecclesiastical practice, they remained warm friends.