My Sill Family

Owned by Liz Hardie
Last updated: Nov 27, 2020
3 min read

My Sill Family

The name Sill is derived from the medieval personal name Silva - which is short form of Silvester or Silvanus - meaning

It has been identified that our branch of the Sill family originates in Jamaica. There are Sills in Jamaica that go back to the early 1700s. These Sills include Edmund Sill who was the part-owner of two ships engaged in the West Indies trade - the Pickering and the Dent. The family had a number of properties in Dentdale on the Cumbria, West Yorkshire border,, purchased on the benefits of this trade. They also built the impressive Whernside Manor, and brought slaves over from Jamaica to work on the property. Edmunds son John Sill of Jamaica (1724-1774) purchased Providence in St James and part of the adjacent Potosi estate in St James' and had a shop in Kingston. Upon Johns death this estate was left to his brothers William Sill and Edmund Sill (1721-1806). Edmunds son John (who died 1803) used 'revenues from Jamaica to buy up various estates at or near Westhouses, Kirkwaithe'. Upon Johns death it came under the ownership of Edmunds daughter Ann Sill. The Sill family and Ann Sill's relationship with a freed Slave Richard Sutton is purported to be the inspiration for Catherine and Heathcliffe in 'Wuthering Heights'. Anns death in 1835 saw the extinction of this line. We have not been able to link our family to this line, or trace our line back to England. 

The earliest known ancestor is Richard Sill. He is the owner of Green Pon His great granddaughter Jane Bygrave emigrated to Australia from Jamaica in 1853.

My Sill ancestry goes back 9 generations and biographies exist for some members as indicated by links 


Other Notes

Robert Grey is awarded the compensation for Green Pond ...


Awarded compensation for Green Pond estate and part of the compensation for Mount Oliphant or Olivant both in Manchester Jamaica, the latter in right of wife as tenant for life under the will of John Anderson Kennedy. Robert Gray had married Margaret Kennedy, almost certainly the widow of Mount Oliphant's previous owner John Anderson Kennedy', in Dublin in 1828. Robert Gray's brother was awarded another part of the compensation Mount Olivant [sic] as trustee of their marriage settlement and creditor.

  1. Will of John Anderson Kennedy of Manchester Lancashire [sic: in fact Jamaica] proved 27/10/1830. In the will he left £500 each to three of his nephew and nieces, and his estate in trust for his wife Margaret for life and then to his half-sisters Elizabeth Anderson Kennedy and Ann Kennedy.

  2. Robert Gray's path to the compensation for Green Pond is not yet known. However, a fully-docmented family tree on Ancestry.com shows a son of Margaret Kennedy and Robert Gray as Thomas Sill Gray (1832-1901), implying some form of patronage by or family tie to the slave-owner Thomas Walker Sill, who had owned Green Pond. Thomas Sill Gray was Rector of Garsdon Wiltshire in the 1881 and 1891 censuses.


1799 [EA] - 1802 [LA] → Richard Sill
1817 [EA] - 1826 [LA] → Thomas Walker Sill
1828 [EA] - 1832 [LA] → 
1834 [EA] - → Robert Gray
1839 [EA] - → Thomas Sweetland


Slave-owner in Jamaica, apparently resident, and dying at Green Pond in Manchester aged 60 in 1797. Excerpts from CARIBBEANA, Volume IV MARRIAGES AND DEATHS FROM "THE COLUMBIAN MAGAZINE OR MONTHLY MISCELLANY", December 1797.