This biography is part of the series Pioneering women in Earth Sciences – the link will take you to the main page.
Anne Phillips is an important yet enigmatic figure in the annals of 19th C English geological science. Very little has been written about her, and most of the accounts that do exist are extracted from a 2007 paper by Nina Morgan. There is a substantial collection of letters written by William Smith to Anne his niece, plus notes and letters written by her brother John Phillips, although Anne’s written replies have disappeared.
Anne and her brother John became wards of their uncle William Smith after the deaths of their parents. It seems that Smith was very fond of his niece and nephew. John was tutored in geology and surveying by Smith, and eventually became a professor of geology at Oxford University, and a Fellow of the Royal Society and Geological Society of London. Although there is little written about Anne’s childhood, it seems likely that she imbibed much of Smith’s knowledge about strata, fossils, and landscapes.
William Smith was a self-taught geologist and surveyor who had to work for a living, and at times was barely able to accomplish even that. The dire straits of his financial situation also landed him in a London debtor’s prison for 10 weeks in 1819. However, his accomplishments as stratigrapher, paleontologist, and geological mapper are legendary – one of the best accounts that places Smith’s expertise in a very human context is Simon Winchester’s The Map that Changed the World.
Smith published his geological map of England in 1815 but had to wait until 1831 for formal recognition by the Geological Society of London. Smith was the first recipient of the Society’s most prestigious award, the Wollaston Medal during a February 1831 meeting, and on that occasion then President Adam Sedgwick referred to him as “the Father of English Geology”.
The relationship between Anne Phillips and her uncle William, and the relationship with her brother are encapsulated in their correspondence – although Anne’s replies have apparently been lost. Nina Morgan (op. cit.) has transcribed many of these letters, and extracted quotes that reflect the level of esteem that Smith and John Phillips felt towards Anne.
In 1829 Anne accompanied her brother from Brussels to York and became his housekeeper and field assistant until her death in 1862. Why she was in Brussels is not known. But her return to York was the beginning of a long relationship with geology, field work, and assisting her brother in his geological endeavours. Neither sibling married. Her brother’s letters contain passages extolling her intelligence and familial service;
John Phillips published two editions of A Guide to Geology. I could find no acknowledgement of Anne’s assistance with this publication in the 1834 Edition, but there are several hints of her contributions to the book compilation in correspondence with John and William Smith. In one letter, Smith casually notes;
John’s letters are effusive in their praise of her loyalty and scientific judgements on various aspects of stratigraphy, fossils, and the more general aspects of field-based geology.
These accolades are best demonstrated in John Phillips account of the Malvern Hills conglomerate story, for which his sister provided critical corroborating evidence. Malvern Hills are cored by Late Precambrian igneous and metamorphic rocks, overlapped unconformably on the western limb by Cambrian to Silurian sedimentary strata, and Triassic sediments in fault contact on the eastern limb. The igneous rocks were variously described as diorite, trap, and sienite. The relationship of the Precambrian rocks to the Cambro-Silurian package was controversial. One of the proponents, Sir Roderick Murchison, who’s volume on The Silurian System was published in 1839, hypothesized that the rocks were intrusive and younger than the Silurian rocks; John Phillips countered with an hypothesis based on pre-Silurian emplacement. The critical evidence for either hypothesis was lacking, until Anne, scouring the countryside, discovered a conglomerate within Silurian strata that contained igneous clasts and Silurian fossils (August,1842). Her discovery confirmed that intrusion of the igneous rocks must have predated the Silurian, with subsequent uplift, exposure and erosion along a Silurian shoreline where igneous pebbles and cobbles were incorporated into the Silurian deposits along with molluscs and corals. Henry De la Beche, the Geological Survey’s first director (1835-1855) and John Phillips boss, later found the same conglomerate in contact with the intrusive rocks. Phillips published the results in The London, Edinburgh and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, in 1842.
The discovery, attributed to his sister, is now known as the Miss Phillips conglomerate.
Everything we know about Anne Phillips is gleaned from other people’s correspondence and publications; none of her own accounts have been discovered – yet. Despite the absence of her own documentary writings and sketchings, Anne must have been an accomplished field geologist who was able to intuit the importance of stratigraphic organization and the nuances of rock provenance.
Reference links
Nina Morgan, 2007. Anne Phillips: John Phillips geological companion. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, v. 281, p. 265-275.
Scarborough Museums and Galleries. Anne Phillips: One of the boys?
William Smith, letters to Anne Phillips, John Phillips, and others are collected in the Museum of Natural History, University of Oxford, Collections Online.
