Phillips[1], a local politician and writer on education, was born at Llanelli, Brecknockshire, the eldest son of Thomas Phillips and his wife, Ann, eldest daughter of Benjamin James of Llangattock, Crickhowell, Brecknockshire. He was articled to a solicitor in Newport, Thomas Prothero, becoming in 1824 a partner in the practice. Phillips and Prothero took a leading part in political life in Newport, and on 9th November 1838 Phillips became its mayor. Towards the end of his tenure of the mayoralty, he had to deal with the Chartist insurrection of 1839 in Newport[2] and in the attack on the Westgate Hotel on 4th November Phillips was wounded, seriously in the arm and slightly in the hip. Following the defeat of the Chartists, he was invited by Queen Victoria to stay at Windsor Castle, where he was knighted on 9 December. The grateful citizens of Newport presented him with a testimonial for over £800, a service of plate, and his portrait. He was voted the freedom of the City of London on 26th February 1840.
On 10th June 1842, Phillips, having given up his practice as a solicitor in January 1840, was called to the bar at the Inner Temple. His career as a barrister, specialising in chancery work, was distinguished and he was named a queen’s counsel on 17th February 1865. He acquired considerable wealth from his legal work and he bought coalmines in South Wales. He took a leading role in educational endeavours: as a governor of King’s College, London, as a supporter of the National Society, and as a benefactor of Trinity College in Carmarthen, Howell’s School in Cardiff, and Christ College in Brecon. His deep commitment to the Church of England led him to serve as a member of the Church Institution, a governor of the Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy, and a tireless contributor to the Church Extension Society in the diocese of Llandaff. He was also chairman of the Society of Arts.
Phillips felt keenly that the so-called blue books (the reports of the commissioners on education in Wales, published in 1847) were a serious misrepresentation of social conditions in Wales, and in 1849, after travelling all over Wales to collect material, he produced a magisterial work entitled Wales: the language, social condition, moral character, and religious opinions of the people, considered in their relation to education: with some account of the provision made for education in other parts of the kingdom. The following year he published The Life of James Davies, a Village Schoolmaster, an illustrated account of a pioneer of education in rural Wales. Phillips was struck with paralysis immediately after addressing a committee of the House of Commons and died five days later, on 26th May 1867, at his London home, 77 Gloucester Place, Portman Square. He was buried at Llanelen, Monmouthshire. He was unmarried, but his example of public service was followed by his sister’s son, Thomas Phillips Price, MP for the northern division of Monmouthshire between 1885 and 1895.
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[1] Sources: J. Morgan Four biographical sketches, 1892, Law Times, 1st June 1867, pages 48, 110, The Times, 28th May 1867 and D. J. V. Jones The last rising: the Newport insurrection of 1839, 1985. Archives: Bodleian. Oxford: correspondence with Sir Thomas Phillips; and, National Library of Wales: letters to W. Addams-Williams
[2] Chris Williams ‘The great hero of the Newport Rising’: Thomas Phillips, Reform and Chartism’, Welsh History Review, volume 21, (2003) and ‘Sir Thomas Phillips and the Problem of “Class-Antagonism”’, in Michael J. Turner (ed.), Reform and Reformers in Victorian Britain, Sunderland University Press, 2002 provide valuable information on Phillips and his role at Newport.
Thursday 30 August 2007
Chartist Lives: Robert Philp
Philp[1], a Chartist and compiler of reference works, was born in Falmouth on 14th June 1819, the son of Henry Philp (1793–1836). His grandfather, Robert Kemp Philp (1769–1850), was the Unitarian minister of Falmouth and one of the earliest supporters of ragged schools.
Philp was apprenticed in 1835 to a printer in Bristol, and afterwards settled as a newsvendor in Bath, where he was once fined for selling a Sunday newspaper; on refusing to pay, he was condemned to the stocks for two hours. He became a well-known Chartist, regularly contributing to the movement’s journals and editing, with Henry Vincent, the National Vindicator, a Bath weekly newspaper, which appeared in 1841–2. Prominently involved in the campaign on behalf of the leader of the Newport rising, John Frost, he was arrested in early 1840, but charges were dropped. Philp’s prominence was confirmed by his election in mid-1841 to the executive committee of the National Charter Association. A supporter of a cross-class alliance, in the spring of 1842 he signed the declaration drawn up by Joseph Sturge and was appointed a delegate to the conference called by Sturge in Birmingham in December 1842. Philp did not believe he was abandoning his Chartist principles. He was a member of the National Convention which sat in London in April 1842, and is credited with having drawn up the second Chartist petition, signed by 3,317,752 persons. His support for Sturge’s Complete Suffrage Union, however, resulted in a bitter row with Feargus O’Connor and his removal from the Chartist executive.
No longer a Chartist, Philp moved to Fetter Lane in London in 1845 and began a career as a publisher of popular literature. He was sub-editor of the People’s Journal from 1846 to 1848 and then launched the Family Friend, successively a monthly, fortnightly, and weekly periodical; he was its editor from 1849 to 1852. It had an enormous sale. Similar serials followed: the Family Tutor (1851–3), the Home Companion (1852–6), and the Family Treasury (1853–4). Philp then began to compile cheap practical handbooks; in many cases these were issued in monthly numbers at 2d. The most popular, Enquire Within upon Everything, appeared in 1856; a sixty-fifth edition followed in 1882, and by 1888 over a million copies had been sold. Another best-seller from 1856 was The Reason Why, which sought to answer common queries. This compilation heralded a Reason Why series of volumes dealing with such topics as domestic science (1857), the Bible (1859), natural history (1860), Christian denominations (1860), the garden and the farm (1860), and physical geography and geology (1863). His dictionaries of daily wants (1859), of useful knowledge (1858–62; issued in monthly parts), and of medical and surgical knowledge (1862–4; issued in monthly parts), and The Lady’s Every-day Book (1873) were also popular.
In addition to Philp’s various dictionaries, he also compiled travel guides, notably a series in the 1870s for the various railway companies. Finally, at least five songs by him were set to music, and he wrote poetry and a comedy in two acts, The Successful Candidate (1852). Philp died at 21 Claremont Square, Islington, on 30th November 1882, aged sixty-three, and was buried at Highgate. He left an only son.
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[1] Sources: R. B. Pugh ‘Chartism in Somerset and Wiltshire’, Chartist Studies, ed. A. Briggs, 1959, pages 174–219, The Academy, 23rd December 1882, pages 451–2 and The Times, 23rd December 1882.
Philp was apprenticed in 1835 to a printer in Bristol, and afterwards settled as a newsvendor in Bath, where he was once fined for selling a Sunday newspaper; on refusing to pay, he was condemned to the stocks for two hours. He became a well-known Chartist, regularly contributing to the movement’s journals and editing, with Henry Vincent, the National Vindicator, a Bath weekly newspaper, which appeared in 1841–2. Prominently involved in the campaign on behalf of the leader of the Newport rising, John Frost, he was arrested in early 1840, but charges were dropped. Philp’s prominence was confirmed by his election in mid-1841 to the executive committee of the National Charter Association. A supporter of a cross-class alliance, in the spring of 1842 he signed the declaration drawn up by Joseph Sturge and was appointed a delegate to the conference called by Sturge in Birmingham in December 1842. Philp did not believe he was abandoning his Chartist principles. He was a member of the National Convention which sat in London in April 1842, and is credited with having drawn up the second Chartist petition, signed by 3,317,752 persons. His support for Sturge’s Complete Suffrage Union, however, resulted in a bitter row with Feargus O’Connor and his removal from the Chartist executive.
No longer a Chartist, Philp moved to Fetter Lane in London in 1845 and began a career as a publisher of popular literature. He was sub-editor of the People’s Journal from 1846 to 1848 and then launched the Family Friend, successively a monthly, fortnightly, and weekly periodical; he was its editor from 1849 to 1852. It had an enormous sale. Similar serials followed: the Family Tutor (1851–3), the Home Companion (1852–6), and the Family Treasury (1853–4). Philp then began to compile cheap practical handbooks; in many cases these were issued in monthly numbers at 2d. The most popular, Enquire Within upon Everything, appeared in 1856; a sixty-fifth edition followed in 1882, and by 1888 over a million copies had been sold. Another best-seller from 1856 was The Reason Why, which sought to answer common queries. This compilation heralded a Reason Why series of volumes dealing with such topics as domestic science (1857), the Bible (1859), natural history (1860), Christian denominations (1860), the garden and the farm (1860), and physical geography and geology (1863). His dictionaries of daily wants (1859), of useful knowledge (1858–62; issued in monthly parts), and of medical and surgical knowledge (1862–4; issued in monthly parts), and The Lady’s Every-day Book (1873) were also popular.
In addition to Philp’s various dictionaries, he also compiled travel guides, notably a series in the 1870s for the various railway companies. Finally, at least five songs by him were set to music, and he wrote poetry and a comedy in two acts, The Successful Candidate (1852). Philp died at 21 Claremont Square, Islington, on 30th November 1882, aged sixty-three, and was buried at Highgate. He left an only son.
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[1] Sources: R. B. Pugh ‘Chartism in Somerset and Wiltshire’, Chartist Studies, ed. A. Briggs, 1959, pages 174–219, The Academy, 23rd December 1882, pages 451–2 and The Times, 23rd December 1882.
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