Sir Sydney Herbert Holcroft Henn, KBE (Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire) (1918), was born on 4 Dec 1861 in Manchester, England. He was educated at Marlborough College and Manchester Grammar School. In 1881, he entered a firm of South American merchants, Duncan Fox & Co., and spent the next 32 years in Chile. In 1892, he married Frances Anne Shanklin and they had two sons and three daughters. Henn retired in 1913 to settle in England.

In 1917, Henn joined the staff of the Surveyor-General of Supply at the War Office; two years later, he was transferred to the Ministry of Munitions. He retired, once again, in 1921. A year later, he was elected to the House of Commons as Unionist Member for Blackburn (1922-1929).

Henn served on the Imperial Economic Committee (1924-1927) and on the Advisory Committee of the new East African Dependencies Trade and Information Office in London (1925-1935). During this time, he was also Chairman of the Joint East Africa Board (1926-1929) and toured East Africa on their behalf. In the election of 1929, Henn lost his seat in the House of Commons. He spent part of 1929 and 1930 on a trans-Atlantic visit.

In the summer of 1930, Henn visited Tanganyika (Tanzania) to preside as an independent Chairman over a local commission appointed by the Governor to make recommendations on railway construction. He was elected a member of the Joint East Africa Board Executive Council in 1930. In Aug 1932, he visited South America on a financial mission for the Governor of the Bank of England. Sir Henn died on 21 Oct 1936.