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--WILSON pp.17-19--

Francis Phylyppe, a Fleming, had settled in Staffordshire in the 16th century. Two of his descendants, John and Nathaniel Philips, established a business as tape manufacturers at 7 Somerset Street in Manchester in 1747, transferring it to premises on Church Street in 1826. The business, which was known as J. & N. Philips, remained at Church Street until being taken ove by Great Universal Stores in the 1950s.

On 1757 Nathaniel married and bought a house on King Street, Manchester, from where it seems possible that he carried on a subsidiary business, involving hats, with a younger brother, Thomas. Thomas at a later date lived at Sedgley Hall and his son became Sir George Philips, MP.

Nathaniel's three sons - John, Robert and Samuel - were born while he was living at King Street, but in 1780 he bought a house called The Dales at Stand and later moved to Stand Lodge in Stand Lane. The Dales is now the clubhouse of Stand Golf Club, although the top storey has been removed, and it was also at one stage the home of Robert Leake, MP for Radcliffe-cum-Farnworth.

Certainly by 1783, Nathaniel and Robert, his son, had started a Sunday School in Whitefield, based in a warehouse belonging to the firm. This would have been one of the earliest such schools in the world, being established perhaps even prior to that of Robert Raikes in Gloucester (nb: Raikes's was NOT the first, cf wikilink). After around five years of co-existing with business activities at the warehouse, the school moved to the workhouse premises around Moss Lane, by which time up to 500 children were attending. In 1808, it was moved to a room in a cottage adjoining Stand Unitarian Chapel; a few years later it moved a few yards further in order to use the schoolroom of Stand Grammar School.

Robert had married Ann Needham in 1798 and in 1800 he bought a 126 acre estate from a Mr Crompton. The estate was on wooded, undulating land below Stand which even then was called The Park because it was used for deer-hunting by the Earls of Derby. It is possible that Crompton was the grand-son of Joshua Crompton, who had died at Stand Old Hall in 1728.

Robert Philips was one of the chief contributors to the fund for rebuilding Stand Chapel in 1818.

--REV R T HERFORD, Memorials of Stand Chapel--

"Robert Philips was a Radical when to be a Radical was to incur dislike and hostility. He was a Dissenter and a Unitarian when to be a Unitarian was a legal offence."

-- http://homepage.ntlworld.com/brenda.scragg/MANCHESTER%20BOOK%20COLLECTORS.htm--

John Leigh Philips, a member of the well-known Manchester family, lived in a large house called Mayfield, close to the present-day site of Piccadilly station. He was Lieutenant Colonel of the Manchester and Salford Volunteers and an avid collector of books and pictures. He was one of the first Trustees of the Portico Library in 1806. His extensive library came under the hammer on his death in 1814. The sale of his books and pictures took 19 days. The sale attracted a number of London dealers but William Ford also bought many items for his large shop in the centre of Manchester. Many of these books later found their way into the libraries of local collectors.

His youngest son Nathaniel George Philips born in 1895 was an artist of considerable merit who exhibited at the Royal Manchester Institution. Between 1822 and 1824 he issued as separate pictures engravings of old halls in Lancashire and Cheshire. They were later published in book form in 1893 with descriptive text of each illustration and a memoir of Philips who had died in 1831.