Helen P. PHILLIPS

PHILLIPS, HELEN P (b. Devonshire, England, 1851; d. 1929). First Australian CMS missionary.

Helen Phillips came to Australia to be principal of St Catherine's School in Sydney, the School for the Daughters of the Clergy, having been senior assistant mistress, Sheffield Girls' High. She became also the tutor for women students at Sydney University. She was the first missionary to be accepted by the newly formed CMA of NSW in 1892. She was sent to Ceylon while the official delegation from CMS in London which had come to arrange the formation of the new Association was still in Sydney, leaving on 13 June 1892. She was a lady of independent means, and went as a voluntary missionary. She started an industrial school at Dodanduwa, in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) entirely at her own expense. She remained as headmistress there until she retired in 1905.

CMS Register of Missionaries and Native Clergy 1804-1904 (CMS London, 1904) 285; E Stock, History of the CMS vol III (CMS London, 1899) 547; K Cole, A History of the CMS of Australia(Sydney, 1971)

COLIN REED