British Naval Officer, Colonial Governor. Born in the parish of All Hallows in Bread Street, London, his father, Jacob Phillips, came from Frankfurt and had emigrated to London to teach foreign languages; his mother, Elizabeth French, was the widow of a naval officer named Captain Herbert. Arthur Phillip was educated in Greenwich and, in 1755, became a midshipman on "HMS Buckingham", which, the following year, became the second flagship of the British Fleet in the Mediterranean, under the command of Admiral John Byng. Phillip was then transferred to the West Indies on "HMS Stirling Castle", under Captain Everett. In 1762, he saw action at the siege of Havana, after which he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant. The following year, peace was declared, and Phillip married a lady named Isabella and settled at Lyndhurst in Hampshire as a farmer. In 1778, however, war broke out with France and he rejoined the Royal Navy. In 1786, he was assigned the duty of forming the first convict settlement in Australia. The "First Fleet" set sail on the May 13, 1787, consisiting of two frigates, six shiploads of convicts, and three shiploads of stores. They reached Botany Bay on January 18th, and, eight days later, Phillip founded the city of Sydney. Before the end of February, a plot by the convicts for a raid on the stores was discovered. The soil around Sydney proved less productive than had been hoped, and, by January 1790, the troops were on the verge of mutiny and the whole settlement was on half-rations. In November 1792, Phillip asked for permission to resign, on the grounds of ill-health, and sailed back to England on December 11. It should, perhaps, be mentioned that the native chiefs, Bennilong and Yemmeraweri, asked to accompany him to England. On his return, Phillip was promoted to the rank of Admiral. He lived for another two decades, died in Bath, and is buried in the nearby village of Bathampton.