Education
Rugby School.
Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom
Rugby School.
The family"s extensive estate on the boundary of Whitefield and Prestwich, in Greater Manchester (now within the Metropolitan Borough of Bury), is now Philips Park. His father"s business partnership, Philips, Wood & Company, was dissolved in 1844 after the death of both partners. The younger Robert was educated at Rugby School and at Manchester College.
His residences were listed in 1881 as The Park, Manchester, and Welcombe, Stratford upon Avon, Warwickshire.
He was a partner in a partnership of smallware manufacturers, with interests in Staffordshire, Lancashire, Westmorland and London, which was dissolved in 1855. He was also engaged in a similar partnership which was restructured in 1867.
After his death in 1890 at the age of 75, a further partnership was dissolved, which had involved a bleaching and dyeing enterprise at Bagley in Lancashire, and bobbin manufacturing at Staveley in Westmorland. Philips was appointed as a Deputy Lieutenant of Lancashire 1853, and of Warwickshire in 1855.
He was Sheriff of Lancashire from 1856 to 1857.
He was elected as the Member of Parliament for Bury at the 1857 general election, but held the seat for only two years until he stood down from the House of Commons at the 1859 general election. He stood again in 1865, after which he held the seat until he retired from Parliament of the United Kingdom at the 1885 general election.
17th United Kingdom Parliament. 19th United Kingdom Parliament. 20th United Kingdom Parliament.
21st United Kingdom Parliament.
22nd United Kingdom Parliament]
He lived in Manchester and in Warwickshire, and after holding at least three ceremonial appointments he was the Member of Parliament (Member of Parliament) for the borough of Bury, a mill town which was then in Lancashire, for a total of 22 years between 1857 and 1885.
