Lionel Charles Henley was an English genre painter born in London,
He first studied in Dusseldorf and exhibited in Magdebourg before returning to London where he settled and worked.

He was an active exhibitor between 1862 and 1893, showing at the Royal Academy, British Institution, Royal Institute of Oil Painters and the Society of British Artists, as well as at the Royal Society of Artists in Birmingham and Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. In 1879 he was elected a member of the Society of British Artists, a society that elected JW its President in 1886.