He studied mural painting and stained glass at Birmingham College (School) of Art (1903-09), following which he worked as an assistant to A.B. Payne. 

Rushbury moved to London in 1912. 

During World War One he served as an official war artist (1918). After the war he studied briefly at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, under Henry Tonks and R.M. Catterton-Smith (1919).  

Henry Rushbury subsequently worked as a painter and etcher. He also designed posters for London & North Eastern Railway (LNER), London Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) and British Railways (BR), and painted several pictures that were used as carriage prints by LNER in the 1930s and 1940s. In addition he designed at least one poster for Shell-Mex and BP Ltd. in c.1932, and illustrated at least four books - 'Paris' by Sidney Dark (London: MacMillan, 1926), 'Rome of the Renaissance and Today' by Renell Rodd (London: Macmillan & Co., 1932), 'Fenland Rivers: Impressions of the Fen Country' by Iris Wedgewood (London: Rich & Cowan, 1936) and 'The Story of the Horse' by A.J.R. Lamb (London: Alexander Maclehose & Co., 1938). 

From 1920 he travelled extensively and exhibited widely including at the Royal Academy, the New English Art Club, the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours, the Royal Society of Painters-Etchers and Engravers, the Goupil Gallery and the Fine Art Society in London, and Rome. Australia, Canada and New Zealand. 

During World War II Rushbury served again as an official war artist (1939). 

He was made a Royal Academician (RA) in 1936 and knighted for his services to art in 1964. He lived for many years in Lewes, East Sussex. His wife was the painter and embroiderer Florence Lazelle (aka Florence Rushbury, 1896-1981).  

Henry Rushbury lived in London, Sussex and Essex. He died in Lewes, Sussex on 5 July 1968.