Father a Bristol wine-merchant (emigrated from Mannheim, Germany, to England); mother (a Miss James from Cornwall).
At seven years old he went to Sedgley Park School in Staffordshire, and at fourteen entered his father's counting-house. After three years, he returned to Sedgley, and thence to Oscott College to study for the priesthood, and in 1820 was ordained by Bishop John Milner.
After serving the Stourbridge mission, near Oscott, for a time, he was sent to Cossey Hall, Norfolk, as chaplain to Sir George Stafford Jerningham (became Baron Stafford in 1825). He lived in residence in a cottage in the village and ministered to the Catholics of the mission from there until a few months of his death.
In over more than half a century, he is said to have been absent for only three Sundays. Seven years after his appointment to Cossey he became grand vicar under Bishop Walsh. In 1841 he opened St. Walstan's Chapel, for which he had collected funds, and in 1850 he received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Rome.
Shortly after the restoration of the English hierarchy by Pope Pius IX, Husenbeth was nominated provost of the Chapter of Northampton, and Vicar-General of the diocese. In the spring of 1872 he resigned his mission, and he died at St. Walstan's Presbytery on the last day of October that year.
Between 1823 and 1849, forty-nine works written or edited by him appeared in London, Dublin, and Norwich. Many were controversial publications, written in refutation of George Stanley Faber and Joseph Blanco White, while others treated of historical, liturgical, or doctrinal matters. Perhaps his most important work is the Life of Bishop Milner, published in 1862; defective as biography, it was a contribution to the history of Catholicism on England.
In 1852 he brought out, assisted by Archbishop John Polding OSB, a new edition with abridged notes, of George Leo Haydock's illustrated Bible. The "Emblems of Saints" (1850) was one of his best original works. From time to time he printed various of his sermons which show his rhetorical style.
He contributed a large number of uncollected verses to periodicals; published articles on a great variety of subjects in different Catholic journals; was a lifelong writer in the columns of Notes and Queries (more than thirteen hundred contributions ); a voluminous letter-writer, exchanging correspondence with various literary celebrities, and with many distinguished converts of his time. Husenbeth's valuable library collection of crucifixes, reliquaries and similar objects and of letters chiefly on religious subjects, were sold at Norwich a few months after his death. Most of his letters passed into the possession of the Bishop of Northampton.