Jump to content

Draft:Arthur Phillips (barrister)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Arthur Phillips (1838 – 1921) was the Standing Counsel to the Government of India..[1] He was awarded the Tagore Law Professorship (1874–75) at Calcutta University. [2]

Life

[edit]

Phillips was born in Cambridge, United Kingdom, the eldest son of Thomas Phillips, a waiter, and Eliza Phillips, a haberdasher.[3][4]

Calcutta High Court 1860

He took his degree at St Catharine's College, Cambridge in 1864, being 15th Wrangler in the Mathematical Tripos, and was subsequently elected to a Fellowship at the same College in 1866.[1] He joined the Middle Temple and was called to the Bar in 1867.[5] Shortly after being called to the bar, Phillips went to India, where he practised at the Calcutta Bar until 1895, and afterwards in England before the Privy Council.[1]

While in India he became a Fellow of the University of Calcutta in 1873[6]. In 1875, he was appointed to act as Standing Counsel to the Government of Bengal for the time of John Pitt Kennedy's absence. Then, in 1877, Phillips was appointed Secretary to the Government of India in the Legislative Department, filling the post left vacant by the appointment of Stokes as Legal Member.[1][7]

He was the author of two legal works, "The Law Relating to the Land Tenures of Lower Bengal" (being the publication of his Tagore Law Lectures), and (in collaboration with Sir Ernest Trevelyan, who was also a Tagore Law Professor[8]) "Hindu Wills.".[1]

Phillips married Emma Pratt[9], and their children included Lawrence (principal of Lichfield Theological College)[10], Alice (who married the son of AKH Boyd)[11], Gerald[9] and Richard (author of Modern Thomistic Philosophy)[12][13]

1874-75 Tagore Law Lectures

[edit]

Bhattacharyya writes that Phillips offered an extensive introduction to the existing land laws in his lectures. Critiquing earlier comprehensive accounts of Indian legal thought by colonial officials constitutes one of the primary focuses of his lecture series. Phillips gave his lectures during a period when the piecemeal local and presidency laws were slowly being consolidated into uniform laws for the whole of British India. His lectures note that information about existing land tenure in precolonial India at hand was at best "vague, but oftener full of contradiction, and one is haunted by the suspicion that anything like a definite account of the matter must be wrong."[14]

Phillips argued that the proprietary right of minerals was separable from permanent grants to land revenue. Shutzer notes that this view was not shared by those in the colonial state, who viewed the Permanent Settlement as a peculiar delegation of landed sovereignty.[15]

Works

[edit]

Phillips, Arthur (1876). The Law Relating to The Land Tenures of Lower Bengal. Calcutta: Thacker, Spink & Company. ISBN 978-1178174151.

Phillips, Arthur; Trevelyan, Ernest (1901). The Law Relating to Hindu Wills, Including the Hindu Wills Act and the Probate and Administration Act. London: Thacker, Spink & Company.

Phillips, Arthur (1923). The Failure of the Higher Criticism of the Old Testament. London: John Bale, Sons and Danielsson, Ltd.

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c d e "Mr. Arthur Phillips". The Times. January 4, 1921. p. 13. Retrieved December 23, 2024.
  2. ^ University of Calcutta. "Tagore Law Lectures: Catalogue". University of Calcutta, Library E-Book Catalogue. Retrieved 30 December 2024.
  3. ^ Bendall, Richard J (2011). "Section A" (PDF). St Mary the Virgin Churchyard, Bathwick Memorial Inscriptions. The Bathwick Local History Society. pp. A-35.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  4. ^ Museum of Cambridge (30 December 2024). "4 Market Street". Capturing Cambridge. Retrieved 30 December 2024.
  5. ^ Foster, Joseph (1885). Men-at-the-Bar: A Biographical Hand-List of the Members of the Various Inns of Court, Including Her Majesty's Judges, Etc. p. 363. ISBN 978-1112093944.
  6. ^ "Minutes for the Year 1872-73". Calcutta: Office of Superintendent of Government Printing. 29 March 1873. p. 144.
  7. ^ Abbate, Giulio (15 November 2024). "Creatures of commercial necessity. Credit practices between mercantile usages and legislation in the Indian case (1866-1896)" (PDF). Historia et Ius - Issn 2279-7416 - Doi 10.32064/26.2024.22 - (26): 33–34 – via DOAJ.
  8. ^ "Sir Ernest John Trevelyan". The Times. 30 July 1924. p. 14. Retrieved 1 January 2025.
  9. ^ a b "Phillips, Gerald William". Online Catalogue for Westminster School's Archive & Collections. 3 January 2025. Retrieved 3 January 2025.
  10. ^ "Death of L.A. Phillips - Former Principal of Lichfield Theological College". Lichfield Mercury. 18 February 1949. p. 5.
  11. ^ "Marriages 1896". The Times of India. 11 January 1896.
  12. ^ Phillips, Richard Percival (24 August 2018). Modern Thomistic Philosophy, Vol. 1 of 2: An Explanation for Students; The Philosophy of Nature (Classic Reprint ed.). Forgotten Books. ISBN 978-1397771339.
  13. ^ "Phillips, Richard Percival". Online Catalogue for Westminster School's Archive & Collections. 3 January 2025. Retrieved 3 January 2025.
  14. ^ Bhattacharyya, Debjani (12 December 2015). "History of Eminent Domain in Colonial thought and Legal Practice". Economic & Political Weekly (Mumbai, India) – via NewsBank.
  15. ^ Shutzer M. (25 March 2021). "Subterranean Properties: India's Political Ecology of Coal, 1870–1975". Comparative Studies in Society and History. 63 (2): 400–432. doi:10.1017/S0010417521000098 – via Cambridge University Press.