Australian History: Arthur Phillip
Arthur Phillip was born in London on 11 October 1738, the son of Jacob and Elizabeth Phillip. He attended the Establishment of the Poor Boys in Greenwich and first went to sea with the mercantile service. Phillip later joined the Royal Navy and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant in 1762. A year later he got married, retired on half pay and spent the next 15 years looking after his property in Hampshire. In 1774
Phillip joined the Portuguese nave and on one occasion conducted a shipload of convicts across the Atlantic, an experience that may have influenced his appointment as Governor of New South Wales. He rejoined the Royal Navy in 1778 and retired again in 1784. When in October 1786 the British Home Secretary, Lord Sydney, appointed him as Governor of the proposed penal settlement at Botany Bay, Phillip was 48 years old and working as a surveyor for the Admiralty.
Phillip left New South Wales in December 1792 in ill health, but resumed his duties in the navy in 1796 and reached the rank of rear-admiral by 1801. He died in Bath on 31 August 1814.