John Hepburn — Arctic Explorer
31st January 1794–5th April 1861
This is another story on my blog about an ancestor who is not in my direct line. John Hepburn was the cousin of my great great grandfather, he was one of four cousins all brought up in the same small rural community who went on to live lives that intrigued me.
stipple engraving, published 1828
NPG D3250
John Hepburn was born at Spring Gardens on the Newbyth Estate, Whitekirk on the 31st of January 1794, he was baptised a few weeks later at Whitekirk Parish Church.
Whitekirk was a small rural community in East Lothian on the Scottish borders with England and at least five previous generations of this branch of the Hepburn family had lived there. John was the eldest of nine children, his father was an agricultural labourer called John Hepburn and his mother was Jean Sanderson.
The obituary in the Haddingtonshire Courier written in the year of his death furnishes details of his early life.1.
When he was fourteen years old John started work as a cowherd at Lochhouses farm less than two miles from Whitekirk working for Mr Dudgeon. The farm was on the estate of the Earl of Haddington and was made up of land that extended to the coast, consequently John would have been able to look out to sea from his work with the cows.
He left Scotland in 1810 for the harbour city of Newcastle in England to become a sailing apprentice with the shipbuilder Mr Renwick. During this time he sailed between Newcastle and London.
After finishing his apprenticeship in 1814 he sailed to North America on a trading vessel but was shipwrecked on the return voyage and he was taken prisoner by an American privateer. He was held prisoner for several years and then he and the crew were handed over or ‘pressed’ into the Royal Navy. The obituary in the Haddingtonshire Courier stated that he did escape but was recaptured, it was on this second voyage that he met and impressed Lieutenant Franklin, later to be known as Sir John Franklin, the Arctic explorer. The consequence of this meeting was that Franklin chose John Hepburn to accompany him to the Arctic in 1818. The expedition was commanded by Captain David Buchan, Franklin captained the second vessel named The Trent. During the two years they were in the Arctic, John Hepburn was credited with saving the life of Franklin who consequently named an island, an inlet and a river after him.
On their return Franklin used his position at the Admiralty on John Hepburn’s behalf, he wrote that Hepburn’s ‘…conduct during a period of extreme difficulty and distress… was so humane and excellent as to merit the highest promotion that his situation in life entitles him to’2. As a result of this, John Hepburn was promoted to second master in the navy and received a position in Leith in charge of a small ship called The Hope that supplied naval vessels with stores.
Four years later in 1826 John Hepburn married Mary Ann Storie in St Andrews, Edinburgh, she was the daughter of James Storie and Ann Inglis and her family also lived in Whitekirk. Mary Ann was thirty and John was thirty two.
In the year of his marriage The Hope was retired and John left Scotland and became the warden of the Royal Naval Haslar Hospital in Hampshire, England.
This land-based job may not seem a natural fit for a sailor but Sir John Richardson, the doctor who had also been on the 1818 arctic expedition had ‘a long and distinguished association with the Haslar’ according to the Haslar heritage group. An important bond had been forged between Richardson and Hepburn in the Arctic when they suspected that one of their colleagues, Robert Hood had been murdered by the Iroquois guide Michael. As the only witnesses Hepburn and Richardson were vunerable, being alone in the wilderness with a man who they suspected of being a killer. The two men eventually concluded that Michael was guilty and Richardson shot him in the head later explaining that he had done this partly to protect Hepburn. Having been through an experience like this it is easy to think that it was not a coincidence that gave John Hepburn this position at the Haslar and brought him over four hundred miles to Hampshire. Sir John Richardson joined the hospital later in 1838 as physician and was promoted to Inspector of Hospitals and Fleets in 1840.3.
In 1836, after John Hepburn had been working for ten years at the Haslar, Sir John Franklin was made Lieutenant Governor of Van Diemen’s Land and in August of that year John Hepburn sailed with him for Australia. Sir John Franklin was quoted in Sir John Richardson’s book as saying about Hepburn ‘… The Admiralty very kindly stretched a point and gave him the full superannuation and I am in great hopes that I may be able to give him some permanent appointment in the colony. In the meantime I propose making him some kind of Major Domo at Government House, though not of course to attend at table — unless I should find an opening for him under the Lt. (Burnett) who is going out with me …”4.
When they arrived in Van Dieman’s Land John Hepburn’s first job was as superintendent of Government House for the Franklins and then he was made the superintendent of the children’s convict colony at Point Puer which had been set up in two years earlier.
A letter written by John Hepburn in 1838 revealed his distress about reports that had reached Franklin claiming that Hepburn was unhappy with his job in Australia. When Franklin replied and asked what position he would like, Hepburn said that when he had saved £200 he hoped that his wife would come out to join him “…we shall have enough to stock a small farm, should such be in Your Excellency’s power to grant” John Hepburn assured Franklin that he was happy in his job and grateful for the opportunity 5.
Four years into his career in Australia, John Hepburn’s mother died in Whitekirk. This was in the year of the first census in 1841 which showed that his wife Mary Ann was living on independent means in Whitekirk with her widowed mother and her brother James.
There were several notable travellers in the Hepburn family, one of these was John’s cousin John Stuart Hepburn who was nine years his junior. Their families had lived together in Whitekirk and John Stuart had also been in the Royal Navy and had risen to the rank of Captain. When he was just thirty years old, John Stuart had taken his family to Australia and had managed to ‘overland’ cattle into the interior of Victoria. He had established a large home that he named Smeaton after the estate of Sir Thomas Buchan Hepburn in East Lothian, an estate that dominated the community where he grew up. (At this time his cousin James Hepburn, my great great grandfather was working on this estate and later became the Factor). The Smeaton estate in Australia was in an area of Victoria that soon became famous for the gold rush which secured the wealth of Captain Hepburn’s family.
In 1843, Sir John Franklin and his wife visited John Stuart Hepburn at Smeaton although his cousin John Hepburn did not appear to be with them 6.
John Hepburn’s time at Point Puer is recorded in a few news articles such as an enquiry into the death of one of the boys in his charge in 1844. There were also letters written by Hepburn after his returned to Scotland and sent to his friend John Mitchell who remained in Australia and who had held the appointment as superintendent at Point Puer.7.
In 1845 Sir John Franklin went to the Arctic again but this time without John Hepburn, on this occassion he failed to return creating a mystery that fascinates people to this day. An 1847 article in The Courier (Hobart) confirmed that John Hepburn was still in Australia at this time.
In 1848/9 John stayed with his cousin at Smeaton for six months learning station management. On January 1st Captain John Stuart Hepburn said in his diary “Left for town today with the boys for school and Cousin John for home” 8. This was the year when another of John’s cousins left Scotland and came to live at Smeaton in Australia, John Stuart’s half brother Benjamin arrived to work with his brother where he also established his fortune.
When John Hepburn arrived home in England in 1850, he met his wife in Woolwich and they went back up to Scotland together. He had been away from his home and his wife for over thirteen years and he returned to accusations and rumours that he had a ‘woman’ and children in Australia. A line in his letter to John Mitchell dated 26th January 1851 said “I am sure you will be sorry to hear that my conduct while in V.D.L. had been basely misrepresented in this quarter consequently much prejudicial doubt must hang over me — amongst many other things can you believe that I stand charged with having a woman abd family in V.D.L. — Little did I expect to meet such a stunning charge…” 9.
John’s father was alive to see his return to Scotland, he was living with one of his daughters in Whitekirk. John’s siblings had all remained within a few miles of each other and his uncle Thomas Hepburn, father to his cousins in Australia and my great great great grandfather was still living in the same small community.
John Hepburn didn’t return to live in Whitekirk but took up residence with his wife in the village of Westbarns two miles from Dunbar, he was fifty seven and she was fifty five.
Less that a year after his return to Scotland, John Hepburn set sail again for the Arctic. On the 22nd of May 1851 he left from Aberdeen aboard the Prince Albert at the request of Sir John Franklin’s wife. John was nearly sixty years old and not in good health but Lady Franklin was determined to find her husband and this was one of many trips that she arranged to search for him. John visited the Haslar Naval Hospital to consult with Sir John Richardson and Sir WE Parry, another arctic explorer, who passed him fit to go to the Arctic. 10. During this trip John Hepburn remained on board due to ill health and in this time told his stories of his first Arctic voyage, these stories were recorded in the Journal of Lieutenant Jose Rene Bellot 11.
John Hepburn returned to Scotland in 1852 and the following year his father died in Whitekirk. On the 8th of November 1853 John wrote a letter from Leith to his friend Mitchell. The rumours about his conduct in Van Diemans Land continued to circulate in Scotland and he said that he had consulted Sir John Richardson about leaving Britain to escape these troubles by going to the Cape of Good Hope or one of the West India Islands. Sir John Richardson suggested that he returned to Van Diemen’s Land and offered to help him achieve this. 12.
Three years after this letter and his correspondance with Sir John Richardson John Hepburn travelled to Port Elizabeth in the Cape of Good Hope. According to his obituary, he went there because of failing health and he held a Government position until his health failed him and he was unnable to work.
This is possible but in a letter dated 22nd January 1856 from Cape Town he wrote to someone unspecified to ask for any job saying that his pension was inadequate for him and his wife although at this time his wife was still in England. I have not received permission from the Pretoria archives to print a copy of this letter here.
John Hepburn died at the house of William Jameson in Damart Street, Port Elizabeth on 5th April 1861. I haven’t been able to find out what his occupation was during his time in South Africa or any other details about his life there other than a name in his will of Dewy George Simpson.
His will left probate to his brother Richard Hepburn of Tynninghame, East Lothian who lived at the farm where John had worked as a young boy. He didn’t leave anything to his wife who was living in London.
John Hepburn was buried in St Mary’s cemetery, Port Elizabeth but there is no head stone.
John’s will
The 1861 census showed that his wife Mary Ann was living on her own as a widow at 5 Cottage Row Bermondsey. She died on the 12th of March 1862 in the Bermondsey workhouse in London, a long way from her Scottish roots. Her body was collected by friends and removed but it is unknown where she was buried.
John Hepburn was awarded the Arctic Medal in 1857. The document below from the National Archives says that it was sent to Sir J Hepburn. To my knowledge there was no such person, John himself was in South Africa so my best guess is that it was a mistake and that it was sent to Sir John Richardson. This is a guess but in 1933 was in the posession of a descendent of Sir John Richardson.
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- Haddingtonshire Courier obituary 7 June and 5 July 1861
- and 5. Page 277 of The Life of Sir John Franklin, R.N. By Henry Duff Traill
3. I assume that Mary Ann Hepburn lived at the Haslar with her husband but the reply from Mark Dunton at the National Archives at Kew was as follows ‘In my assessment, the records you are looking for do not survive. I tried keyword searching on our Catalogue, Discovery, in advanced search, for the period in question (1826–36), combining words such as ‘Haslar and staff’ within all the ADM records, but there were no results. I also tried combining ‘Haslar and establishment’, as sometimes establishment lists of staff can be useful, but again met without success. I also tried searching simply using the word ‘staff’ within ADM 104, and there was nothing of interest in relation to your enquiry.’
At the time of his (Sir John Richardson in 1838) appointment Haslar Hospital was the largest naval hospital in the world and the biggest brick building in Europe. It had a reputation for good care of patients and outstanding clinical research. Haslar was headed in these years by a captain superintendent who was a naval line officer, not a medical man, with his own staff, and the senior medical officer was an inspector of hospitals and fleets, with his own professional staff. For several years Richardson had as captain superintendent the Arctic explorer Sir William Edward Parry, his close personal friend, and Haslar Hospital went well. Quote from the Dictionary of Canadian Biography online about Sir John Richardson.
4. Slightly embarassingly I have lost the reference for this quote!
6. and 8.‘Here my Home, The Life and Times of John Stuart Hepburn 1803–1860, master mariner, overlander and founder of Smeaton Hill, Victoria’ By Lucille M. Quinlan
7. 9. 10. and 12. ‘Letters of John Hepburn to John Mitchell’ held in the Tasmanian Archives NS3016. The original letters belong to Chris Mitchell.
11. Memoirs of Lieutenant Joseph Rene Bellot With His Journal of a Voyage in the Polar Seas in Search of Sir John Franklin
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I have received help researching John Hepburn from many people including Maureen Loftie-Eaton McCleland on the South African Genealogy Face Book page, from Andres Paredes on his Kabloonas blog and from many books, websites and newspapers as follows
Sources for additional information on John Hepburn
Dictionary of Canadian Biography
Biography of John Hepburn on the website of the John Grey Centre in Haddington
To the Arctic by Canoe 1819-1821 The Journal and Paintings of Robert Hood Midshipman with Franklin.
