amateur photographer and public servant, was born at Perth (WA) on 5 March 1836, son of John Randall Phillips and his first wife. He was employed as a clerk in the Colonial Secretary’s Office in 1852 and was one of the party sent to rendezvous with the explorer Robert Austin at Shark Bay in 1854. He was appointed assistant colonial secretary in 1880 and commissioner of police in 1887. He was also an amateur photographer. His albumen silver photograph of a group of Aborigines in ragged European dress (c. 1861) survives in the disassembled album (p.c., Perth) of Alfred H. Stone . Newton suggests that Phillips and Stone learned photography together.
Phillips was married three times: to Ruth Rachel Perry on 14 September 1848, to Annie Emma Hare on 22 July 1869, and to Vittoria Ellen Jane Burges on 16 February 1886. He died at East Perth on 26 March 1900.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
