ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a biography of mid- to late-19th-century Victorian vocalist Henry Phillips. In a career of some forty years he dominated, for more than half that time, all areas of British music-making, winning for himself an unparalleled reputation which, for some reason, some later commentators have tried to undermine. The facts of Henry Phillips's life and career were, in fact, to a certain degree, recorded by the man himself in a two-volume autobiography, Musical and Personal Recollections during Half a Century (1864) and, if age has here and there distorted the chronological framework of his career in his 'recollection', and if he has preferred not to share the details of some areas of his personal life. Richard Phillips was playing bits at Drury Lane in 1816–1817, and Master Phillips was there too, presumably still a soprano, playing the Robber Boy in The Iron Chest.
