Background
He was born on 6 July 1921, the son of Captain William Duncan Phipps Registered Nurse and Pamela Ross, and was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge.
He was born on 6 July 1921, the son of Captain William Duncan Phipps Registered Nurse and Pamela Ross, and was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge.
Following the war, having read History at Trinity, he studied for the priesthood at Westcott House, Cambridge.
In 1940, he was commissioned into the Coldstream Guards. He fought both in North Africa, where he was wounded, and in Italy. A talented writer of lyrics, he was President of Footlights in 1949.
In 1953, after a short spell as a curate in Huddersfield, Phipps was appointed Chaplain at Trinity.
That appointment was followed by ten years at Coventry as an Industrial Chaplain, during which time he lived in a small council flat on a new housing estate. His time in Coventry is generally thought to have formed one of the personally happiest periods of his ministry.
In 1968 Phipps was appointed as Suffragan Bishop of Horsham, before being translated to Lincoln in 1974, where he served as Bishop until 1987. Phipps died in January 2001.
They had no children.
On his death, The Times recorded that Phipps had combined gentleness, tranquillity and sweetness of character with deep psychological insight and considerable strength of purpose.