During his residence at York the museum was transferred to its present quarters in the grounds of St. Mary's Abbey, the keeper's residence being on the site of the gatehouse.
In 1831 the British Association held its first meeting at York, and Phillips took the leading part in the work of organisation. In the following year he became its assistant secretary, and held this office for twenty-seven years. In 1834 he was appointed professor of geology at King's College, London, where he delivered an annual course of lectures, but continued to reside at York till 1840, when he received an appointment on the geological survey. This he held till 1844, when he quitted London for Dublin, to become professor of geology at Trinity College. Here he remained till 1853, when he succeeded Hugh Strickland [q. v.] as deputy at Oxford for Professor William Buckland [q. v.] On the death of the latter in 1856, he became ‘reader in geology,’ and at a later date was constituted professor. When the new museums were built at Oxford in 1857, he was appointed curator, and occupied the official residence. He was keeper of the Ashmolean Museum from 1854 to 1870.
Phillips was elected F.G.S. in 1828, received the Wollaston medal from that society in 1845, and was its president in 1859 and 1860. He was elected F.R.S. in 1834. He presided over the section of geology at the British Association in 1864 and 1873, and was its president in 1865. He was also an honorary member of various British and foreign scientific societies, and was admitted to the freedom of the Turners' Company a few days before his death. He received an honorary LL.D. from Trinity College, Dublin, in 1857, and the same degree from Cambridge in 1866; Oxford gave him the honorary degree of M.A. in 1853 and of D.C.L. in 1866. He was also an honorary fellow of Magdalen College. Still in the full vigour of mind, and with but little loss of bodily power, he died on 24 April 1874, from the result of a fall on a staircase at All Souls' College. He was unmarried.
Notwithstanding his heavy official duties, Phillips contributed largely to scientific literature. Rather more than a hundred papers stand under his name in the Royal Society's ‘Catalogue,’ the majority of which appeared in the ‘Proceedings’ of the Royal Society, the British Association Reports, the publications of the Geological Society of London, and the ‘Philosophical Magazine.’ The variety of subjects shows the wide range of his knowledge; they include magnetic and electrical topics, pendulum experiments, questions meteorological and astronomical, especially in relation to sunspots and to the planet Mars, researches in which his mechanical skill stood him in good stead; and in geology he wrote on stratigraphy, palæontology, and the physical side of the subject, contributing among other papers a most valuable report to the British Association on the subject of slaty cleavage. He contributed to the publications of the Geological Survey ‘Figures and Description of the Palæozoic Fossils of Cornwall, Devon, and West Somerset’ (1841), and a ‘Memoir on the Malvern Hills,’ &c. (1849); and to the Palæontographical Society ‘A Monograph of the Belemnitidæ’ (left unfinished). Besides these, he was the author of the following separate works: ‘Treatise on Geology,’ 1837 (two editions); ‘Guide to Geology,’ 1834 (five editions); ‘Illustration of the Geology of Yorkshire,’ vol. i. 1829, vol. ii. 1836 (at the time of his death he was engaged on a new edition, of which the first volume was afterwards published); ‘Geological Map of the British Isles,’ 1842; ‘Memoirs of William Smith,’ 2 vols. 1844; ‘Life on the Earth, its Origin and Succession’ (the Rede lecture delivered to the university of Cambridge in 1860); ‘Vesuvius,’ 1869; and ‘The Geology of Oxford and the Valley of the Thames,’ 1871. More than one of these books still hold a high place in geological literature.
Phillips was an attractive speaker and lecturer, an excellent organiser, ‘eminently judicious, ever courteous, genial, and conciliatory.’ There is a portrait in oils at the Geological Society, London, and a bust in the museum at Oxford.
[Obituary Notice in Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc. 1875, Proc. p. xxxvii; Geological Magazine, 1870 p. 301 (portrait), and 1874, p. 240; Nature, ix. 510.]
PHILLIPS, JOHN ARTHUR (1822–1887), geologist, born at Polgooth, near St. Austell in Cornwall, on 18 Feb. 1822, was son of John Phillips, who at one time was occupied as a mineral agent, and of Prudence Gaved of Tregian St. Ewe. After an education at a private school at St. Blazey he was placed with a surveyor, but soon turned his attention to metallurgy, especially in connection with electricity. Feeling the want of a more exact scientific training, he entered as a student at the École des Mines, Paris, in December 1844, and graduated in 1846. For about two years he held a post at a French colliery, but returned to England in 1848. Here, after serving as chemist to a government commission on the question of coal for the navy, and as manager to some chemical works, he started on his own
