Sir Richard Phillips (13 December 1767 – 2 April 1840) was an English schoolteacher, author, publisher and vegetarianism activist. Phillips was a staunch advocate for freedom of the press in Britain and a proponent of the interrogative system of education. Phillips was widely recognized for his radical politics and enterprising approach to his publishing endeavours.

From 1807 to 1808, Phillips served as one of the annually elected Sheriffs of the City of London. Alongside his co-Sheriff, Christopher Smith, Phillips established the Sheriff's Fund and implemented new sanitary measures, such as limewashing, at Newgate Prison. Following his shrievalty, Phillips was honoured with the rank of Knight Bachelor by King George III on 30 March 1808.Clemit and McAuley

Early life Phillips was born in London on 13 December 1767. Phillips was raised on his family's Leicestershire farm alongside his brother. He attended schools in Soho Square and Chiswick;Timbs p. 94 in A Morning's Walk From London to Kew, Phillips reminisces on his time at Chiswick, noting the distinctive school bells. Phillips' education was funded by his uncle, and he was initially encouraged to take over his uncle's proprietorship of the Lion Brewery in Soho. After Phillips completed his education, his father had hoped to include him in the family's farm business, however Phillips had no interest in the profession and chose to move to London instead. Unfortunately, due to poor economic and trade conditions in London, Phillips ended his stay and moved back home to his parents' farm.

Phillips then moved out of his family's farm and into his own ground floor room in Leicester. From there, Phillips worked as schoolteacher where he taught children spelling, reading, writing, and arithmetic. Eventually, Phillips became unsatisfied with the profits and general expectations with his role as a teacher and quit to set up a hosiery line in a small shop. Phillips began The Leicester Herald in May 1792 after concluding that politics was a profitable sector due to its widespread appeal; the herald continued until April 1795.

Trial and imprisonment On 6 December 1792, a copy of Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man, Part Second, was sold at Phillips’ Leicester bookshop by his shopman, Henry Popplewell. The book was sold to a shoemaker, James Jackson, who had been contracted by the Leicester prosecution and the town-clerk William Heyrick to purchase a copy of Rights of Man specifically from Phillips’ shop.Original Papers... p. 17 On 18 December 1792, Thomas Paine underwent trial, in absentia, for seditious libel and was found guilty.

At the 18 January 1793 session of the Leicester Borough Court, three different indictments were brought against Phillips, including one for the sale of Charles Pigott's Jockey Club and two for the sale of Paine's Rights of Man.Original Papers... p. 15 Phillips was taken to the court by a warrant and made to pay £1200 bail.Original Papers... p. 7 Phillips’ trial began on 12 April 1793, and concluded with his sentencing at the Leicester Borough Court on 13 April 1793. Phillips was found guilty of selling the second part of Rights of Man and the second part of Jockey Club, but he was acquitted on his third indictment due to a defect in the evidence. Ultimately, Phillips was sentenced to eighteen months in prison.Original Papers... p. 16

According to Phillips’ and Popplewell's affidavits from 13 April 1793, both men maintain that they were not aware of any legal notice or proclamation that Paine's Rights of Man or Pigott's Jockey Club were considered libellous.Original Papers... p. 20Original Papers... p. 22 Phillips and Popplewell both stated that they believed Rights of Man could be easily found and purchased at all other Leicester book sellers until after Paine's 18 December verdict.

Phillips addressed the public through his journal, the Leicester Herald, shortly after the sentencing on 20 and 27 April 1793. While serving his sentence at the Leicester Gaol, Philips was attended to by the famous jailer Daniel Lambert. Phillips enjoyed a friendly relationship with Lambert, and as a result was permitted to continue with his work and receive several notable visitors, including Lord Moira and Charles Howard, 11th Duke of Norfolk.Timbs p. 97

Return to London and publishing career On 18 November 1795, a nearby fire on Gallowtree Gate reached Phillips' property, destroying all of his books and papers. Following the fire and experiencing some political difficulties in Leicester (being imprisoned in 1792 for selling Thomas Paine's Rights of Man), he returned to London, established premises in Paternoster Row, St. Paul's Churchyard, and founded The Monthly Magazine in 1796; its editor was Dr. John Aikin, and among its early contributors were fellow radicals William Godwin and Thomas Holcroft.Rees and Britten, p. 79f.

In 1796, Phillips married Elizabeth Griffiths, a milliner's employee and the daughter of Captain John Griffiths of Tenby. The anonymously published Memoirs of the Public and Private Life of Sir Richard Phillips, Knight, High Sheriff for the City of London and County of Middlesex. Impartially Compiled from authentic documents, By A Citizen of London, and Assistants (1808) details the couple's introduction and the circumstances of their engagement: Upon his return to London, Phillips boarded at the home of a well-respected milliner, Mrs. Blacklin, and her staff of young women. With his diet restricted simply to vegetables in case of any lard or other animal products in seemingly safe dishes, Phillips mentioned his predicament to the lady of the house. When he came home that evening, he found a vegetable pie left specifically for him. He quickly learned that the pie was prepared by one of the milliner's employees, and Phillips immediately offered his hand in marriage as a reward. The couple had several children together, including their sons Alfred and Richard, and their daughters, Elizabeth, Laura, and Emily.

Phillips built up a prominent fortune based on the speculative commission of newly revised textbooks and their publication, in a competitive market that had been freed by the House of Lords' decision in 1777 to strike down the perpetual copyright asserted by a small group of London booksellers to standard introductory works.Marina Frasca-Spada and Nicholas Jardine, Books and the Sciences in History (Cambridge University Press, 2000) "A Textbook revolution", p. 319. His Juvenile Library published in 1800–03 provided the steady returns of all successful children's books.A Rauch, "Preparing "The rising generation": Romanticism and Richard Phillips's Juvenile library 1800–1803" Nineteenth-Century Contexts, 1991.

By 1807, Phillips was in sufficient standing to serve as a Sheriff of London, and was knighted on 30 May 1808 on the occasion of presenting an address to King George III.He published his Letter to the Livery of London, on the Office of Sheriff in 1808. In 1808, Phillips and his co-Sheriff, Christopher Smith, founded the Sheriff's Fund to provide financial and material assistance to prisoners and their families or dependents. Donations were primarily collected through poor boxes and allowed prisoners to purchase clothing, food, coal, candles, and other necessities. John Timbs states that there were no public executions held outside the Old Bailey during Phillips' shrievalty, but there is no other evidence to support this claim.Timbs p. 102

In the early hours of 29 July 1810, a fire was discovered in Hanging Sword Alley at the printing office of Mr. Thomas Gillet, which printed and housed some of Phillips stock. Flames destroyed five homes in the surrounding alley, as well as the entirety of Phillips’ valuable stock of books and documents. Initial reports of the incident note public suspicion of the cause of the fire, citing the occurrence of three previous fires at the office between 1805 and 1810. Popular periodicals such as The Satirist, or Monthly Meteor and The Scourge, or, Monthly Expositor of Imposture and Folly discussed the Gillet fire and its connection to Phillips; one of Phillips’ creditors anonymous submitted a letter to The Scourge detailing his suspicion that Gillet orchestrated the fire to commit insurance fraud.

Another of the contributors to Phillips's Monthly Magazine was the Scottish novelist John Galt. Angela Esterhammer has suggested that the character Masano, an irascible Italian printer in Galt's Andrew of Padua, the Improvisatore (1820), is based on Phillips.Esterhammer, Angela (2020), Introduction to John Galt:Three Short Novels, Edinburgh University Press, pp. xv & xxvi–xxvii

Retirement and death

In 1823, Phillips sold one third of his successful literary properties, retired to Brighton, and continued to work on several reference books. His Million of Facts was published in 1825, followed by the commencement of his Golden Rules of Social Philosophy series in 1826.Timbs p. 115

Phillips overextended himself and was declared bankrupt in the Bank Panic; two different banks, both with connections to Phillips, collapsed on the same day, resulting in a devastating financial loss for Phillips between £40-50,000.Timbs p. 116 Although Phillips swiftly traveled to London in an attempt to mitigate his loss, it is understood that he mainly blamed the Ministry and Parliament rather than his debtors.

Timbs writes of his final visit to Phillips in the autumn of 1839 in Walks and Talks About London: "We found the old bookmaker—he always maintained that Euclid was but a bookmaker—full of years and memories, but infirm in health. We talked over various matters; and he summed up his long life, saying he was ‘past crying for the cake.’ There was the old study, well filled with books and papers; but the master seemed to have done his work."Timbs p. 120

Phillips died in Brighton on 2 April 1840, aged 72. His remains were originally interred in the north-west corner of St Nicholas Churchyard, but currently rest in the western extension of the cemetery. The following is inscribed on his tomb:

Vegetarianism

Phillips was a vegetarian beginning at age nine and practiced the lifestyle for upwards of sixty-six years until his death. In an 1837 letter written for a friend in Yorkshire, Phillips describes that his apprehension for animal foods began when he accidentally witnessed a public slaughterhouse in 1780 around age nine. Alternatively, Phillips recounts in his memoir that he was motivated to abstain from animal foods after he returned to Leicester from London, and he was served a heifer he was fond of at his father's farm. Phillips' family was not receptive to his new diet, and though futile, had attempted to coerce him into eating animal foods by depriving a young Phillips of many things. It was not until he was eighteen years old and responsible for himself, that Phillips felt he could freely pursue vegetarianism without the pressure of his family's disagreement. His diet was primarily based on potatoes which were mashed and mixed with seasonal vegetables. Additionally, Phillips made use of seasonings such as salt and pepper, as well as pure olive oil and butter.