Robert Harvey Hilliard (1783-1851) was baptised at Leek, Staffordshire, the son of Francis and Sarah.   In 1809, he married Mary née Unwin at Ecclesfield.   Robert H. Hilliard became a partner in Ellis & Hilliard (see Ellis & Cadman).  In the 1820s, R. H. Hilliard & Co was a merchant and manufacturer of table knives and razors in Grindlegate.  His sons, Harvey Hilliard and William Buxton Hilliard, were born in Sheffield on 16 May 1810 and 11 January 1813, respectively.  The family moved to Scotland, where by 1832 Robert Harvey Hilliard worked as a surgical instrument maker at Edinburgh.  He died on 16 November 1851.

In 1832, Harvey Hilliard established a ‘Scottish Cutlery House’ in Glasgow.  In 1842, he joined Thomas Chapman to start Hilliard & Chapman, a cutler and surgical instrument maker in Glasgow.  In 1849, Harvey began trading alone at the sign of The Star, 60 Buchanan Street.  He died, aged 77, on 16 January 1888 at 19 East Preston Street, Edinburgh.  His brother, William, was also a noted surgical instrument maker in Glasgow from the early 1830s.  W. B. Hilliard died at Craigmore, Rothesay, Scotland, on 16 January 1879.