Who was Henry Phillips?
Henry Phillips was a botanist, horticultural writer and landscape gardener from Brighton in England
Life and work
His reputation as a landscape gardener brought him much work in the Brighton and Hove area; his first commission came in 1822, while he was still living in London. Early in his career he produced a proposed layout for the gardens on the Kemp Town estate (1823), which wasn't initially implemented by Thomas Read Kemp. However, five years later, Phillips' revised scheme was put in place. The Kemp Town Enclosures, as the gardens became known, covered 15 acres (6.1 ha) and had paths around the edges surrounded by informally laid out flowers and small shrubs which were planted on small mounds to protect them from the windy weather on the exposed clifftop.
He later designed an oriental garden containing a giant conservatory which collapsed during construction. Phillips was a member of the Horticultural Society and, in 1825, was elected a fellow of the Linnean Society. Throughout the 1820s and 1830s he published a large number of botanical works.
Phillips is believed to have designed the conservatory at Edward Cross's Surrey Zoological Gardens, which opened in 1831.
He died of enteritis, at his home, 26 Russell Square, Brighton, on the 8th March 1840.