ABSTRACT
Phillips became an Oxford don and was saved for science in a bizarre way. On 14 September 1853 his friend Hugh Strickland, who had been geologising with him during the BAAS meeting at Hull, became a martyr o f science when he was struck and killed by a train while examining a railway cutting near Retford. From 1850 Strickland had been Buckland’s deputy as reader in geology at Oxford. Phillips’ old friend, Daubeny, saw this tragedy as an opportunity for serving the University and Phillips by bringing him to Oxford as Buckland’s deputy. Fifteen days after Strickland’s death, Phillips was appointed his successor.
