Welsh Journals

Books from the 'Nabob': The Benefactions of Thomas Phillips at Lampeter and Llandovery* by Gwyn Walters, FSA Thomas Phillips, founder of Llandovery College, and benefactor to Saint David's College, Lampeter, died in 1851. No personal papers appear to have survived, and this may have been due to the fact that he had no sons or daughters, or even close relatives. His wife had died ten years earlier. But his friend John Jones (1793-1865) of Cefnfaes, Rhayader, at least kept a diary and manuscript notebook in which we find a 'sketch' of Phillip's life, the basis of the obituary in The Gentleman 's Magazine, which was scarcely Boswellian in detail. In it Jones recorded the exceptional philanthropy which his friend exercised at all levels subsequent to his retirement from Indian medical service in 1817. Responding to jibes that much of this benevolence went unappreciated, Phillips is said to have replied: 'Be it so; let us be content with having deserved thanks.' The words epitomised his character. The next biographical piece on Phillips was that by the historian T. F. Tout in The Dictionary of National Biography.2 Tout made the unambiguous claim that no contemporary had made a greater mark on education in Wales. A necessary preface to further analysis of this claim must be a brief account of the early life of Phillips, a rich backcloth against which we can counterpoint his later distribution of educational largesse. Born in London in 1760 to parents of Radnorshire stock, he was temporarily domiciled in the Welsh county, as a delicate child of some seven years, in order to restore his health. A long life of ninety-one years is some testimony to the wisdom of this early decision. He was later at school in Bedfordshire, and then, remarkably, at the age of sixteen he was apprenticed to a surgeon and A lecture delivered to the Society at Llandovery College, Carmarthenshire, on 15 November 1997, with Dr Brinley Jones in the chair. National Library of Wales. MS. 9115 B contains "Sketch of Mr. Phillips's Life", the basis of the obituary in Gentleman s Magazine (1851) i, 655-6. The Diary of John Jones is now appar- ently lost, but extracts appear in W. Bowen Hamer, "Thomas Phillips: founder of the Collegiate Institute at Llandovery", Y Cymmrodor, XV (1915) 170-177. Other journal sources are: A. J. Sambrook "Thomas Phillips 1760-1851", Province: a Church in Wales Quarterly, XI (1960) 127-131: D. R. Davies, "Thomas Phillips", Radnorshire Society Transactions, XXI (1951) 72-74; D. T. W. Price, "Thomas Phillips, Esquire, of Brunswick Square", Trivium, Vols. 29 & 30 (1997) 169-176. 2 Dictionary of National Biography, XLV (1896) 2 1 8.