Robert Hillard (1804-60) and Ann Somerville (1803-85) arrived in Melbourne on 7 July 1850 after 122 days aboard the “Bussorah Merchant”. After departing from Plymouth it encountered gales in the Channel and had to return to port and set out a second time. They were accompanied by four of their children: Rebecca, Robert, MaryAnn and Elizabeth whose ages were declared as ranging from 15 to 9 years. The entire family had understated their ages by about 5 years as otherwise the parents would not have been eligible for assisted passages.

Their three older children – Margaret (1831-85), Jane (1833-1913) Thomas (1825-86) arrived in 1850-51 on the “Eliza Caroline”, the “Diadem” and the “Statesman” respectively. Thomas arrived with his wife Mary Kerr (1824-1906) and their infant daughter Jane (1850-1906) but the two elder girls arrived as “orphans” under the Earl Grey scheme. Since they were not orphans, this appears to be another subterfuge to get the family to Australia.

The reason for the Hillard family deciding to emigrate was almost certainly the famine of 1845-52 that decimated the population – the population of Co Fermanagh declined by more than a quarter between 1841 and 1851 due to death and emigration.

Before their emigration, the family were living in townlands in the Parishes of Aghalurcher and Aghavea located about 20km to the east of Enniskillen between Brookeborough and Fivemiletown. The records of their children’s births show that they were resident in different places at different times suggesting that Robert Hillard was a landless agricultural labourer.

The family are almost certainly descendants of soldiers and/or settlers from the borders of Scotland and England that arrived in the early 17th Century as part of the Plantation of Ulster. Before the Famine, Hillards were most numerous in the Parish of Trory which is about 5km west of Enniskillen. Hillard families leased and farmed much of the townland of Tullyavey that is adjacent to the present airport. Robert Hillard, or his father, is likely to have been a younger son of these families that moved to the east of Fermanagh in the late 18th Century in search of work. While there were a few Hillards living near Trory in living memory, there are almost none living in Fermanagh today suggesting that most people of this once numerous family either died or emigrated as a result of the Famine.

Ann Somerville’s father Samuel (1765-1841) leased land in the townland of Grogy and the family appears in surviving fragments of the 1821 Census as well as leases from 1831-33. Somervilles were, and remain, numerous in the area between Irvinestown and Trory.