John Baillie Henderson, Queensland Government Hydraulic Engineer (1883–1914), influenced the development of hydrology in south-east Queensland by successfully combining state imperatives with an understanding of the local environment. Science became entwined with nation-building where the applied nature of hydrological engineering fostered development and addressed local concerns in a region characterised by drought and flood. Henderson, as part of a global scientific community, appreciated the importance of local climatic variation and substantially increased hydrological knowledge in Queensland at the turn of the twentieth century