Edward Phillips

Edward Phillips (1770-1851) was a graduate of Magdalene College, Cambridge, in 1793, and became the Incumbent of East Tytherley in 1802, where he would serve until his death in 1851. Phillips edited An Octave of Catholic Prayers for the Eventful Year 1851, by a Protestant Catholic (London: Seeleys, 1851), a series of poems designed, he writes in the Preface, to help correct the errors of Roman Catholicism. He was a devout Protestant and Anglican, and clearly evangelical, yet, like Maria Grace Saffery, a friend of the arts and poetry. He hopes that God will continue to bless England and “continue and increase among us that righteousness which has so exalted our nation – that upon all her glory there may be a defence” (vi).  Saffery copied five of his poems, which can be found in Box 22/1, Reeves Collection, and one, titled ‘Pathetic Effusions, in favour of a Public Character’, in Box 27/1, now published in Timothy Whelan, ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 5. Alfred Phillips (1801-80) was the son of Edward Phillips (see previous note).  He earned a B.A. from Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1824 and an M.A. in 1837; in 1841 he received a D.D. from Trinity College, Dublin. He was ordained an Anglican priest in 1832 and served as Vicar at Kilmersdon from 1833 until 1849. After 1838 he was actively involved in education, serving as headmaster and principal of schools at Crewkerne, the Isle of Man, Cheltenham, Worcester, and in British Guiana.