Henry was from an early age fascinated by the effect of light on form – as a child in bed he would move his bedroom door so that the light from the landing fell on to the items of his room in a way that he found satisfactory.
This fascination with light and colour continued to be central to his paintings, along with the freedom to choose - to act in order to achieve a rightness.
"While you choose, you know you are alive"*- a philosophy not limited to the choices made in painting alone; Henry's life choices reflected this central ethos. 
A maverick by nature, he escaped his father's ambitions for him to be a lawyer and chose a life with fellow painter Caeria Strong. Both Londoners, they moved to Cornwall to live close to the land and have a family while continuing to paint. The same sense of rightness led them to try to live self sufficiently and were at the forefront of a counter-cultural move toward organic, small-scale agriculture. With little experience, from scratch they learned, often the hard way, how to keep animals, grow vegetables and make bread, butter, cheese and preserves.
Teaching provided an income, and Henry became well-known in the area for his erudition and eloquence, and gentle encouragement.

*from a dialogue in letters with friend George Wotton, 1999