He was born on April 1, 1802 at Simsbury, Connecticut, United States, the seventh of eight children of Noah Amherst and Charlotte (Wilcox) Phelps. He was the descendant of William Phelps who emigrated from England to Dorchester, Massachussets, about 1630 and later was one of the first settlers of Windsor, Connecticut.
He was graduated from the Medical Institution of Yale College in 1825 and taught school for several winters, devoting his summers to the study of medicine. After this training under local doctors he went to New York to study under Valentine Mott and Alexander Mott.
He opened an office in New York and practised for a time there and later in Simsbury, when the failure of his health forced him to return there.
About 1837 he removed to Hartford and opened a drug store. His drug business prospered from the start. One of his formulas, "Phelps's Tomato Pill, " had an extended sale, and the returns from this with the profits of his drug store laid the basis for his fortune.
The delicate health that had proved a handicap to his career as a physician early aroused his interest in life insurance. That business was then in its earliest infancy in America and was eyed dubiously by the general population. However, he made a diligent study of life insurance as carried on in England and the United States, became convinced of the soundness of the idea, and determined to found a mutual company to promote it. After interesting a number of friends and relatives in the project, he wrote a charter for the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company and fought through two sessions of the legislature to have it granted in 1846.
In the summer of 1846 the company was organized with him as secretary. Until his death he remained the dominating influence in the organization, acting as secretary of the company until 1866 and as president from 1866 to 1869.
Shortly after the organization he went to England to make a further study of English insurance practice. Good financial management and rigid economy carried the company successfully through the panic of 1857 and the boom period of the Civil War.
Deeply concerned with public affairs, he served his townsmen as a member of the city council, 1846-47, and as alderman, 1856-59. He died in 1869.
Guy Rowland Phelps was famous as the founder of the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company. For twenty-three years he remained the dominating influence in the organization. Though not the originator of the mutual system of insurance, he did much to popularize it. He was one of the firsts, who used the charter to safeguard the interests of the policy holders, and the business methods of his company were based on the conservative English practice with some slight modifications to meet American conditions.
He was a man of quiet habits and studious mind, particularly interested in languages and history.
On March 20, 1833, he was married at Simsbury to Hannah, the daughter of Wait Latimer. They had four children.
