Philipp BILL 1845-?
A child, Philipp Bill, arrived in Melbourne on 27th February 1856 aboard the “Marco Polo”, which sailed from Liverpool on 5th December 1855. There were more than 20 emigrants from Nieder-Weisel on the trip. Philipp was with a small group of the Winter family – who were not closely related to him – nor were any of the other Nieder-Weiselerns. Members of the Haub, Hauser, Heinz, Hildebrand, Klippel, Muller and Wilhelm families made up most of the remainder of the group.
Philipp showed as being 9 years of age; in the Nieder-Weisel records he could only have been the son of Johann Georg Bill VIII and Anna Katharina nee Hauser, born 27th March 1845. His father was a linen-weaver but had taken his family to Ipswich in the English county of Suffolk, soon after Philipp was born, to look for better employment opportunities there. A second son, Heinrich, was born in England before the family returned to their village where the birth of a daughter completed the family.
Neither of Philipp’s parents came out to Victoria and their reasons for sending their young son out are quite obscure. There is no record of Philipp marrying, or dying, in the colony, so the rest of his life remains a mystery. There is no family tree for Philipp.