Early Life
Phillips was born in London on 6 August 1855 to a family of lower middle-class merchants, who formed part of a growing group of Jews set to play a major role in the commerce and politics of nineteenth-century Britain. His early formal education was limited, with a good grounding in French and chemistry. He started working for his father as a bookkeeper at the age of 14, but studied privately to become a member of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers. He arrived at the Kimberley diamond fields in 1875, having walked most of the way there from Cape Town, and worked for Joseph Benjamin Robinson as a diamond sorter, fleetingly ran a newspaper, The Independent and later became a mine manager. He made and lost his first fortune in Kimberley with investments in the diamond industry.
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