William Hepburn

Slave-owner on Jamaica owner of the Willekens or Wilkins estate in St Dorothy. The estate appears to have come to him through his marriage to Penelope Willeken Newell, with whom he had a daughter Penelope Newell Hepburn, who married Capt. Arthur Law in 1789 (q.v., under Penelope Newell Law). In 1805-1808 there was conflict between daughter and father, and the estate appears to have been conveyed c. 1808 to Thomas Riddell and Joseph Gillon among others. William Hepburn's son with Mary Ann Roy McGregor, Capt. Robert William Hepburn (1782-1866), died in Tasmania. Some online genealogical sources show a marriage between William Hepburn and Mary Ann Roy McGregor: others describe her as either an enslaved woman or a free woman of colour, and Capt. Robert William Hepburn as a natural son. No death-date, will or probate has yet been found for William Hepburn.