Thomas Phillips (engineer)

Thomas Phillips
Phillips (left), together with Ralph Delaval (right) and John Benbow (centre).
Died	22 November 1693 Aboard HMS Norwich at Guernsey Road in the Channel Islands
Allegiance	Kingdom of England
Service/branch	Royal Navy
Years of service	1661? – 1693
Rank	Second Engineer of the Ordnance

Thomas Phillips (died 22 November 1693) was a Royal Navy officer and engineer who worked with some of the leading naval figures of his period, and was involved in military operations against the French during the Nine Years' War.

Early years

Little is known about Phillips's origins and background, though his parents may have been Welsh. He is first recorded in 1661, when he was appointed as master gunner of HMS Portsmouth. He rose further, passing an examination by the master gunner of England in 1672 and becoming a gunner in the Tower of London. The following year in 1673 he was back with the Royal Navy during the closing stages of the First Anglo-Dutch War, serving under Admiral Edward Spragge. He was commissioned an ensign in the company of the governor of Portsmouth, George Legge. During this period he became an expert on bombardment and fortification and achieved recognition of his abilities as a military engineer. He was dispatched to the Channel Islands in 1679–80, where he surveyed and drew up plans of the Islands from a tactical perspective.

Overseas service

Still with Legge, by now Lord Dartmouth, Phillips joined him in an expedition to destroy the fortifications and mole at Tangier in 1683. He dutifully recorded the expedition's success in a series of drawings. During this time, he fell in with Samuel Pepys, who had also accompanied the expedition. Pepys recorded that Phillips had 'views on many topics, including the improvement of navigation skills, the need to study the world's currents, the importance of mathematics in the educational curriculum of children intended for careers at sea, the simplification of the rigging of ships, and the needlessness of discovering the means of calculating longitude, which he believed would only bring about miscarriages at sea.'

Phillips returned to England in April 1684, and by July had been appointed third engineer of the ordnance. He visited

For his surveys, he drew up meticulous plans of key strategic locations. He drafted a report entitled 'Rules, orders and directions for regulating the office of ordnance in Ireland' and together with Francis Povey carried out a survey of the ordnance and arms remaining in the king's stores in Ireland. He subsequently advised the building of new storehouses. The reports were presented to King James II, who referred to matter to the Irish administration in 1686. The immense cost that would have been involved in implementing Phillips' proposals meant that little was done about them however, and he returned to England in the summer of 1685. His departure was lamented by the former master-general of the Irish ordnance the Earl of Longford, who wrote to Lord Dartmouth praising the character and conduct of 'Honest Tom Phillips'^[2] Phillips also carried out a number of paintings of Irish towns and harbours in a variety of mediums including pencil, pen and ink, and colourwash. They are significant in showing the influence of Dutch landscapists then at work in England, as well as being a useful topographical record of Irish towns in the late seventeenth century.

Fall from grace and subsequent return

Having received good references from his patrons, Phillips was appointed second engineer in December 1685, a post with an annual salary of £250. He was based at the

The revolution caused his patron, Lord Dartmouth, to fall from power and perhaps out of bitterness, Phillips refused to go to

Phillips escaped and returned to the fleet, but may have been injured in the escapade. He died three days later aboard Benbow's flagship, HMS Norwich at Guernsey Road in the Channel Islands on 22 November 1693. His body was brought back to Portsmouth and he was buried on 29 November with military honours in the church. His son Thomas received an allowance to study engineering, whilst his widow, Frances sought payment of his arrears of pay and a pension out of the Welsh revenue to support five children.

The British Library, the National Library of Ireland, the Public Record Office, and Worcester College, Oxford, hold collections of Phillips's surviving plans and drawings. The illustration shows Murray's painting of Phillips with Admiral John Benbow and Admiral Sir Ralph Delaval which is held at the National Maritime Museum. Intriguingly the British Government's art collection also contains an almost identical painting by Godfrey Kneller but Phillips has been replaced by Edward Russell, the first Earl of Orford (Moreover, the picture looks more complete as the figure on the left's hand now holds an object).^[4]

References

• Thomas Phillips at the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
• Information at the National Maritime Museum

External links

• Media related to Thomas Phillips (engineer) at Wikimedia Commons