Captain Hepburn

Captain John Stuart Hepburn born in Scotland in 1800, was an early pastoralist and landholder in Smeaton, Victoria, Australia.

At an early age he became a seafaring man, progressing to become the Master of a 226 ton brig, the ‘Alice’. In 1835 the ‘Alice’ sailed for Hobart, and on board was John Gardiner, an ex banker, who talked Hepburn into joining him in a pastoral business.

Hepburn and John Gardiner were joined by Joseph Hawdon in a successful venture to overland cattle to Port Phillip. Soon after Hepburn met Captain John Coghill and his brother William. The brothers were settled at Kirkham and Stathellen near Braidwood, New South Wales.

In 1837 Hepburn and William Coghill became partners in a plan to overland 1400 ewes, 50 rams and 200 wethers to central Victoria. On the 15th January 1838 the party left Strathallen for Victoria. Shortly after leaving Gundagai, New South Wales, they met William Bowman and the three parties travelled southward, crossing the Murray River near Albury. Major Mitchell’s tracks were picked up near Wangaratta and followed to Mount Alexander, where they set up a lambing camp in April.

Hepburn had hoped to settle on the country he had passed through in 1836 but found it was all taken.
From Mount Alexander, Hepburn sighted Mount Kooroocheang and the Mammaloid Hills. The party moved on; William Coghill travelled further west, crossing Bullarook Creek and Hepburn established the Smeaton Hill Run on the 15th April 1838.
He named Smeaton Hill station after his relatives’ ancestral estate which lay near his birth place in Scotland.

Capt John Stuart Hepburn

“Captain Hepburn’s decision to settle in this area proved another example of the soundness of his judgement, for a more productive district it would be difficult to meet with in this colony. The bringing up and education of a large family went on simultaneously with the superintendence of an extensive run, at a time when black-fellows and kangaroos outnumbered a settler’s cattle. In the course of time Captain Hepburn became wealthy, and at almost every successive sale of Crown lands large tracts of splendid country became his by purchase.” (Creswick Advertiser, August 10^th 1860) 

Capt Hepburn founded the rural town of Smeaton in 1838, and the surrounding Shire of Hepburn, including the town of Hepburn Springs, is named after him. He died in 1860 aged 57 and now lies in the small private family cemetery behind Smeaton House, fenced off and surrounded by trees. When despite protestations he allowed a loyal faithful Chinese employee to be buried in the Hepburn family cemetery, he became the first white Victorian settler to allow a ‘non-European’ person to be buried with other members of his family, as an equal.

DEATH OF Capt. JOHN HEPBURN, ESQ., J.P.

In our last report we announced the serious illness of Captain Hepburn, and expressed a hope that he might be soon restored to health, but that hope was doomed to disappointment, for after several alternations of the disease, and in spite of the utmost medical skill, the silver chord was loosed and the scythe of death laid low one whose very name has become almost a household word from Creswick to Castlemaine. (Creswick Advertiser, August 10^th 1860)

FUNERAL OF Capt. JOHN HEPBURN, ESQ., J.P.

The farmers of the Smeaton district had last week to mourn the loss of Captain Hepburn, who expired on the 7th inst., at the age of 57 years. This gentleman was well known to many personally, and to others by name, as an earnest promoter of agricultural improvement in his part of the country, and residents of all classes did their utmost to testify their respect at the funeral, which took place on Friday. (The Argus, August 16^th 1860)

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