Hepburn

From ScotsWiki
Revision as of 14:10, 21 May 2014 by Charlielynch (talk | contribs) (Hepburn)

Jump to: navigation, search

Hepburn

Hepburn.jpg


Clan Hepburn are a Scottish family or kin-group who do not have a chief and are therefore considered an armigerous clan.

Origins

This name has territorial origins. <ref>George Way of Plean and Romilly Squire, Scottish Clan and Family Encyclopaedia, 402</ref> Hepburn and Hebburn are places in Northumberland and Durham. Their etymology is from the Old English ‘heope burna’ meaning ‘wild rose steam’. <ref>Plean, Squire, Encyclopedia, 138</ref>

Origin Myth

Adam de Hebburne is held to be the founder of the family’s landed power. Tradition states that he was captured by the Scots while on a cross-border raid. While a prisoner he saved the earl of March from an attack by a wild horse.<ref>Plean, Squire, Encyclopedia, 138</ref> <ref>David Dorward, Dictionary of Scottish Surnames, 138</ref> In return the Earl granted Hepburn the lands of North and South Hailes in East Lothian.<ref>Plean, Squire, Encyclopedia, 138</ref> Whatever the truth the Hepburns became extensive landowners in Lothian and the Borders. <ref>Dorward, Surnames, 140</ref>

There were also Hepburns of Waughton, thought by some to have branched off from the Hailes line, thought by others to predate it. Another line was the Hepburns of Beanston, and yet another was the Hepburns of Athelstaneford. All of these families were prominent in various ways at various junctures of Scottish history, but all were primarily located around the East Lothian area.

Middle Ages

Adam de Hepburn’s son married Eleanor de Brus, Countess of Carrick, niece of Robert the Bruce. He was her fifth husband.<ref>Plean, Squire, Encyclopedia, 138</ref> Patrick Hepburn and his son were at the Battle of Otterburn and captured the standard of the Percy Earls of Northumberland, as well as earning the protection of the powerful Douglas family.<ref>Plean, Squire, Encyclopedia, 138</ref>

Sixteenth Century

Sir Patrick Hepburn was made Earl of Bothwell by James IV. Him and his son Adam were killed at the Battle of Flodden in 1513, along with Patrick Hepburn's brother, George, Bishop of the Isles. <ref>Plean, Squire, Encyclopedia, 138</ref>

Patrick, the third Earl joined leading Borders families and joined a rebellion during the reign of James V and was forced into exile. .<ref>Plean, Squire, Encyclopedia, 138</ref>

He returned on the king’s death and attempted to woo Queen Mary of Guise, mother of Mary, Queen of Scots, and later took bribes from Henry IIIV of England to help ensure the infant Mary married his son, later Edward IV.<ref>Plean, Squire, Encyclopedia, 138</ref> This scheme eventually failed and Mary married the Dauphin of France. James, fourth Earl of Bothwell was widely thought to have arranged the murder of Mary’s second husband, Lord Darnley, and later disastrously married Mary himself. Bothwell later escaped to Denmark but was imprisoned at the castle at Dragsholm for eleven years until his death, chained to a pillar.<ref>Plean, Squire, Encyclopedia, 138</ref>

Seventeenth Century

Sir John Hepburn (1598-1636) was born in East Lothian and was the founder of the Royal Scots Regiment. <ref>Dorward, Surnames, 140</ref>

Robert Hepburn, advocate and essayist (c.1690-1716) was born near Bearford, Haddingtonshire. <ref>Geoffrey Carnall, ‘Hepburn, Robert (1690?–1716)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 21 May 2014</ref>

John Hepburn (d.1723) was a Church of Scotland minister and Presbyterian dissident. He was suspended from the church several times for his religious views and was deposed in 1705, but was restored to his ministry in 1707 due to the support of his parishioners. <ref>David Stevenson, ‘Hepburn, John (d. 1723)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 21 May 2014</ref>

Eighteenth Century

Margaret Hepburn (1726-1758) was an Edinburgh shopkeeper and daughter of John Hepburn (d.1171) minister of Old Greyfriars Church and Margaret Fenton, daughter of Thomas Fenton, an Edinburgh merchant and Baillie. <ref>Elizabeth C. Sanderson, ‘Hepburn, Margaret (bap. 1726, d. in or after 1758)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 21 May 2014</ref> Margaret's business provided funeral provisions.

Sir George Buchan Hepburn (1739-1819) was a senior judge in Edinburgh. He was the son of John Buchan of Letham, and Elizabeth, daughter of Patrick Hepburn of Smeaton. <ref>T. F. Henderson, ‘Hepburn, Sir George Buchan, first baronet (1739–1819)’, rev. Michael Fry, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 21 May 2014</ref> Educated at the University of Edinburgh, he was a close friend of Henry Dundas. <ref>T. F. Henderson, ‘Hepburn, Sir George Buchan, first baronet (1739–1819)’, rev. Michael Fry, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 21 May 2014</ref>

James Hepburn of Rickarton and Keith Marshal was a laird who spent his fortune on the Jacobite cause. <ref>H. M. Chichester, ‘Hepburn, Francis (1779–1835)’, rev. David Gates, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 21 May 2014</ref>

His son, Colonel Robert Rickart Hepburn of Keith (1720-1804) was Member of Parliament for Kincardineshire 1768–1774. He was the son of James Hepburn of Keith and Katherine Rickart. <ref>http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1754-1790/member/hepburn-robert-rickart-1720-1804</ref>

Nineteenth Century

Francis Hepburn (1779-1835) was a British army officer, who was the second son of Colonel David Hepburn of Inchbrakie, Perthshire. He served in a variety of military campaigns including the Peninsular War, where his leg was shattered at the Battle of Barossa (1811). <ref>H. M. Chichester, ‘Hepburn, Francis (1779–1835)’, rev. David Gates, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 21 May 2014</ref>

Thomas Hepburn (c. 1795 – 1864) was an English coal miner and trade union leader. A tireless union agitator, he died aged 69 after a career which spanned 56 years. He is remembered by a headstone detailing his union activities and Thomas Hepburn Community School in Felling, Gateshead, is named after him. He is described as a pioneer in trade unionism's heroic age. <ref>Norman McCord, ‘Hepburn, Thomas (1796–1864)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 21 May 2014</ref>

Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Bernard Rickart Hepburn (1876-1939) was a Canadian politician and businessman.

John Stuart Hepburn (1800-1860) was born in Scotland but became a sailor and later an early landowner and farmer in Australia. He founded the rural town of Smeaton. <ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Hepburn</ref>

Patrick George Thomas Buchan Hepburn, Baron Hailes (1901-1974) was a British conservative politician and diplomat, descended from Patrick Hepburn, who had been made Lord Hailes in 1452. <ref>David Goldsworthy, ‘Hepburn, Patrick George Thomas Buchan-, Baron Hailes (1901–1974)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 accessed 21 May 2014</ref>

References

<references/>