Henry Dean, born in 1827 in Lincolnshire, arrived in South Australia on the Surrey (ship) October 1838 with his parents and family. He assisted the family farming operations in the Adelaide area and for two years on Kangaroo Island. In the late 1850s he was manager of Blanchewater Station for John Baker. In 1861 he became a partner with Thomas Elder and Bedford Hack in the pastoral runs of Lake Hope and Manuwaukaninna.

Dean and others were involved in a violent altercation with local Aboriginal people in 1865, when he was wounded in the shoulder and neck by a spear. Dean left these properties about 1872 and returned to Adelaide. Here he worked with his brother William in selecting and bringing to market cattle and sheep, for his own firm Dean Laughton and Co. and for his brother's firm William Dean and Son..He also farmed, unsuccessfully, at Stansbury on the Yorke Peninsula.

Henry Dean died at Rose Park on 19 November 1907.