His mother Elizabeth was the widow of an ordinary seaman, John Herbert, who had served in Jamaica aboard HMS Tartar and died of disease on 13 August 1732.
Admiral Arthur Phillip (11 October 1738 – 31 August 1814) was an English Royal Navy officer and the first Governor of New South Wales who led the British settlement and colonisation of Australia.
His father Jacob died in 1739, after which the Phillip family may have fallen on hard times.
On 22 June 1751 Arthur was accepted into the Greenwich Hospital School, a charity school for the sons of indigent seafarers.
At the end of 1753 he was granted a seven-year indenture as an apprentice aboard Fortune, a 210-ton whaling vessel commanded by merchant mariner Wiliam Readhead.
He left the Greenwich School on 1 December and spent the winter aboard the Fortune awaiting the commencement of the 1754 whaling season. ==First voyages== Phillip spent the summer of 1754 hunting whales near Svalbard in the Barents Sea.
The ship returned to England on 20 July 1754.
The ship returned to England in April 1755 and sailed immediately for Svalbard for that year's whale hunt.
On 16 October he enlisted in the Royal Navy and was assigned the rank of ordinary seaman aboard the 68-gun . As a member of Buckingham's crew, Phillip saw action in the Seven Years' War, including the Battle of Minorca in 1756.
By 1762 he had transferred to , and was promoted to Lieutenant in recognition of active service in the Battle of Havana.
The War ended in 1763 and Phillip returned to England on half pay.
In July 1763 he married Margaret Denison, a widow 16 years his senior, and moved to Glasshayes in Lyndhurst, Hampshire, establishing a farm there.
The marriage was unhappy, and the couple separated in 1769 when Phillip returned to the Navy.
Phillip soon decided that this site, chosen on the recommendation of Sir Joseph Banks, who had accompanied James Cook in 1770, was not suitable, since it had poor soil, no secure anchorage and no reliable water source.
The following year he was posted as second lieutenant aboard , a newly built 74-gun ship of the line. In 1774 Phillip joined the Portuguese Navy as a captain, serving in the War against Spain.
Phillip played a leading part in the capture of the Spanish ship San Agustín, on 19 April 1777, off Santa Catarina.
Casa Tilly, was attacked by two Portugueze Ships, against which they defended themselves for a Day and a Night, but being next Day surrounded by the Portugueze Fleet, was obliged to surrender. In 1778 Britain was again at war, and Phillip was recalled to active service, and in 1779 obtained his first command, HMS Basilisk.
Casa Tilly, was attacked by two Portugueze Ships, against which they defended themselves for a Day and a Night, but being next Day surrounded by the Portugueze Fleet, was obliged to surrender. In 1778 Britain was again at war, and Phillip was recalled to active service, and in 1779 obtained his first command, HMS Basilisk.
He was promoted to post-captain on 30 November 1781 and given command of . In July 1782, in a change of government, Thomas Townshend became Secretary of State for Home and American Affairs, and assumed responsibility for organising an expedition against Spanish America.
A letter from Phillip to Sandwich of 17 January 1781 records Phillip's loan to Sandwich of his charts of the Plata and Brazilian coasts for use in organising the expedition.
He was promoted to post-captain on 30 November 1781 and given command of . In July 1782, in a change of government, Thomas Townshend became Secretary of State for Home and American Affairs, and assumed responsibility for organising an expedition against Spanish America.
The expedition, consisting of the Grafton, 70 guns, Elizabeth, 74 guns, Europe, 64 guns, and the frigate Iphigenia, sailed on 16 January 1783, under the command of Commodore Robert Kingsmill.
Phillip wrote to Townshend from Rio de Janeiro on 25 April 1783, expressing his disappointment that the ending of the American War had robbed him of the opportunity for naval glory in South America. After his return to England from India in April 1784, Phillip remained in close contact with Townshend, now Lord Sydney, and the Home Office Under Secretary, Evan Nepean.
Phillip wrote to Townshend from Rio de Janeiro on 25 April 1783, expressing his disappointment that the ending of the American War had robbed him of the opportunity for naval glory in South America. After his return to England from India in April 1784, Phillip remained in close contact with Townshend, now Lord Sydney, and the Home Office Under Secretary, Evan Nepean.
From October 1784 to September 1786 he was employed by Nepean, who was in charge of the Secret Service relating to the Bourbon Powers, France and Spain, to spy on the French naval arsenals at Toulon and other ports.
A garbled version of this eventually found its way into the English press when Phillip was appointed in 1786 to lead the expedition to Sydney.
From October 1784 to September 1786 he was employed by Nepean, who was in charge of the Secret Service relating to the Bourbon Powers, France and Spain, to spy on the French naval arsenals at Toulon and other ports.
The British Government took the decision to settle what is now Australia and found the Botany Bay colony in August 1786.
Lord Sydney, as Secretary of State for the Home Office, was the minister in charge, and in September 1786 he appointed Phillip commodore of the fleet which was to transport the convicts and soldiers who were to be the new settlers to Botany Bay.
A subsidiary colony was to be founded on Norfolk Island, as recommended by Sir John Call, to take advantage for naval purposes of that island's native flax (harakeke) and timber. In October 1786, Phillip was appointed captain of and named Governor-designate of New South Wales, the proposed British colony on the east coast of Australia, by Lord Sydney, the Home Secretary. Phillip had a very difficult time assembling the fleet which was to make the eight-month sea voyage to Australia.
Phillip was accompanied by a contingent of marines and a handful of other officers who were to administer the colony. The 11 ships of the First Fleet set sail from Portsmouth on 13 May 1787.
In January 1788, he selected its location to be Port Jackson (encompassing Sydney Harbour). Phillip was a far-sighted governor who soon saw that New South Wales would need a civil administration and a system for emancipating the convicts.
The leading ship, reached Botany Bay setting up camp on the Kurnell Peninsula, on 18 January 1788.
After some exploration Phillip decided to go on to Port Jackson, and on 26 January the marines and convicts landed at Sydney Cove, which Phillip named after Lord Sydney. === Governor of New South Wales === Shortly after landing and establishing the settlement at Port Jackson, on 15 February 1788, Phillip sent Lieutenant Philip Gidley King with eight free men and a number of convicts to establish the second British colony in the Pacific at Norfolk Island.
Scurvy broke out, and in October 1788 Phillip had to send Sirius to Cape Town for supplies, and strict rationing was introduced, with thefts of food punished by hanging.
Tench was sent on a punitive expedition but finding no Aboriginal people other than Bennelong took no action. Phillip, growing frustrated with the burdens of upholding a colony and his health suffering, resigned soon after this episode. By 1790 the situation had stabilised.
Sirius was wrecked in March 1790 at the satellite settlement of Norfolk Island, depriving Phillip of vital supplies.
In June 1790 the Second Fleet arrived with hundreds more convicts, most of them too sick to work. By December 1790 Phillip was ready to return to England, but the colony had largely been forgotten in London and no instructions reached him, so he carried on.
In 1791 he was advised that the government would send out two convoys of convicts annually, plus adequate supplies.
But July, when the vessels of the Third Fleet began to arrive, with 2,000 more convicts, food again ran short, and he had to send the ship Atlantic to Calcutta for supplies. By 1792 the colony was well established, though Sydney remained an unplanned huddle of wooden huts and tents.
The colony was still very short of skilled farmers, craftsmen and tradesmen, and the convicts continued to work as little as possible, even though they were working mainly to grow their own food. In late 1792, Phillip, whose health was suffering, relinquished his governorship and sailed for England on the ship Atlantic, taking with him many specimens of plants and animals.
He tendered his formal resignation and was granted a pension of £500 a year. ==Later life and death== Phillip's estranged wife, Margaret, had died in 1792 and was buried in St Beuno's Churchyard, Llanycil, Bala, Merionethshire.
Phillip arrived in London in May 1793.
In 1794 Phillip married Isabella Whitehead, and lived for a time at Bath.
His health gradually recovered and in 1796 he went back to sea, holding a series of commands and responsible posts in the wars against the French.
In January 1799 he became a Rear-Admiral.
In 1805, aged 67, he retired from the Navy with the rank of Admiral of the Blue, and spent most of the rest of his life in Bath.
This was the beginning of the process of convict emancipation which was to culminate in the reforms of Lachlan Macquarie after 1811. Phillip showed in other ways that he recognised that New South Wales could not be run simply as a prison camp.
Admiral Arthur Phillip (11 October 1738 – 31 August 1814) was an English Royal Navy officer and the first Governor of New South Wales who led the British settlement and colonisation of Australia.
He continued to correspond with friends in New South Wales and to promote the colony's interests with government officials. Phillip died in Bath in 1814.
Forgotten for many years, the grave was discovered in 1897 and the Premier of New South Wales, Sir Henry Parkes, had it restored.
Another was unveiled at St Mildred's Church, Bread St, London, in 1932; that church was destroyed in the London Blitz in 1940, but the principal elements of the monument were re-erected at the west end of Watling Street, near Saint Paul's Cathedral, in 1968.
A monument to Phillip in Bath Abbey Church was unveiled in 1937.
Another was unveiled at St Mildred's Church, Bread St, London, in 1932; that church was destroyed in the London Blitz in 1940, but the principal elements of the monument were re-erected at the west end of Watling Street, near Saint Paul's Cathedral, in 1968.
Another was unveiled at St Mildred's Church, Bread St, London, in 1932; that church was destroyed in the London Blitz in 1940, but the principal elements of the monument were re-erected at the west end of Watling Street, near Saint Paul's Cathedral, in 1968.
An annual service of remembrance is held here around Phillip's birthdate by the Britain–Australia Society to commemorate his life. In 2007, Geoffrey Robertson QC alleged that Phillip's remains are no longer in St Nicholas Church, Bathampton and have been lost: "Captain Arthur Phillip is not where the ledger stone says he is: it may be that he is buried somewhere outside, it may simply be that he is simply lost.
There is also another portrait of him by the same painter in the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney. Percival Serle wrote of Phillip in his Dictionary of Australian Biography: Michael Pembroke's biography of Phillip adds that he was also a highly skilled international spy employed by the British government. ===200th anniversary=== As part of a series of events on the bicentenary of his death, a memorial was dedicated in Westminster Abbey on 9 July 2014.
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