Thomas Phillips (mayor)

Sir Thomas Phillips (1801–1867) was a Welsh lawyer, politician and businessman, known as a mayor of Newport in Monmouthshire.

The eldest son of Thomas Phillips of Llanellan House, Monmouthshire, by Ann, eldest daughter of Benjamin James of Llangattock, Crickhowell, Brecknockshire, was born at Llanelly in 1801. From June 1824 till January 1840 he practised as a solicitor at Newport, Monmouthshire, in partnership with Thomas Prothero.

On 9 November 1838 Phillips was elected mayor of Newport, and became a figure of the Newport Rising. On 4 November 1839 was in charge of the town when John Frost, at the head of seven thousand chartists, entered it with the intention of releasing Henry Vincent from gaol. While reading the Riot Act from the Westgate Inn he was wounded with slugs in the arm and hip. A company of the 45th Regiment of Foot then fired on the crowd, which was completely routed, seventeen being killed and about thirty wounded. On 9 December Phillips was knighted to mark his "individual exertions in maintaining her majesty's authority". On 26 February 1840 he was voted the freedom of the City of London, and admitted on 7 April.

Phillips was called to the bar at the Inner Temple on 10 June 1842. Shortly afterwards he set off on a tour of parts of Europe and the Middle East. He wanted to take a draughtsman, and on the recommendation of David Roberts employed Richard Dadd; Roberts knew Dadd's father. The journey, via Venice, Greece and Egypt, saw Dadd suffer a breakdown, and he returned to England, leaving Phillips in Paris, in May 1843, suffering from mental illness. Having stabbed his father to death, he was confined to Bethlem Hospital as insane.

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