Hugh Perry Keane

Son of Michael Keane (q.v.), and for several years the partner of an enslaved woman on St Vincent named Betty Keane. He divided his time between St Vincent and Essex in the early 1800s. His diaries for 1788-1819 are at the Virginia Historical Society, reflecting the move of his son Hugh Payne Keane to the southern US in the 1830s.

1. Adm. pens. at ST JOHN'S, June 6, 1786. [Only s. of Michael, Attorney-General of the Island of St Vincent, W.I. B. in Ireland.] School, Harrow. Kept two terms by residence. Re-adm. as Fell.-Com. May 12, 1787. Adm. at Lincoln's Inn, Jan. 14, 1785. Called to the Bar, Apr. 30, 1790. Married and had issue (an elder s., Hugh Payne, at Harrow). Of 23, New Street, Spring Gardens, London. ‘Deceased’ before 1823. (Harrow Sch. Reg.; St John's Coll. Adm., IV. 342; Inns of Court.)

2. Will of Hugh Perry Keane proved 05/06/1821. He divided his property 2/5th to his eldest son Hugh Payne Keane and 1/5th to each of his younger children Lionel Richard, Susan and Mariana, with the proviso that his eldest son could take all the real estate on the payment of £6000 to Lionel Richard and £4000 each to Susan and Mariana.

3. Hugh Perry Keane appears to have sold the two estates and the enslaved people attached to them which and whom he had inherited at some time in the 1810s. In the 1822 Slave Register for St Vincent, an increase in eight enslaved people were shown for the estate of Hugh P. Keane deceased, of whom six had been imported from the Bahamas in 1818.

4. According to the St. George's Anglican Cathedral baptism records, in addition to the children he had with his wife, Hugh Perry Keane had two free coloured children with a woman named Jane Aberdeen. They were Anna (baptised 1812) and Paulina (baptised 1813). Paulina carried the Keane surname. She received compensation for three enslaved people in 1836.

We are grateful to Cheryl Hazell for her assistance in compiling this entry.

Simon D. Smith, Slavery, Family and Gentry Capitalism fn 124 p. 348 cites Mark Quintanilla, 'The Domestic World of a Vincentian Planter and His "Sable Venus"', paper presented at St Vincent and the Grenadines Country Conference, 22– 24 May 2003, www.uwichill.edu.bb/bnccde/svg/conference/ papers/quintanilla.html. This link is no longer [22/12/2017] operative; Paula Downer 'A very interesting memorial in St James Church West End (Susannah and Hugh Perry Keane)' Westender, the Journal of the West End Local History Society, Vol. 11 No. 3 Jan-Feb 2018 pp. 6-9.

1. Ancestry.com, Cambridge University Alumni, 1261-1900

2. PROB 11/1644/166.

3. T71/495 p. 573.

4. St. George's Anglican Cathedral baptism records, St Vincent; correspondence from Cheryl Hazell 08/01/2024. Parliamentary Papers p. 154.