Helen Phillips

Helen Plummer Phillips (1850–1929) was an educator, missionary, and philanthropist. She was the first missionary sent from Australia by the newly formed Church Missionary Association NSW (now CMS Australia) in 1892. She was the first tutor for women students at the University of Sydney and formed the University of Sydney Women's Society in 1891 and established its settlement work, mentoring the women students until the Women's College was built and the first principal arrived. Phillips was a principal of St. Catherine's School, Waverley NSW, an advocate for women's full education, and a benefactor of St Luke's Anglican Community Church, Medlow Bath, NSW.

Life and ministry

Early life Helen Phillips was born on 19 November 1850 to a relatively well-off family in Shaugh Prior, Devon, England and grew up in Lee Moor House. William died in 1861 when Helen was ten years old, and the occupation of both her mother Mary and older brother John was listed on the census of that year as "China Clay Merchant and Brick Manufacturer employing 89 men".

Phillips graduated from Bedford College, London and became a teacher, a senior assistant mistress at Sheffield Girls' High, England. Helen was invited to be headmistress of St. Catherine's School, Waverley by Bishop Alfred Barry, third bishop of Sydney so she also sailed to Australia later in 1884.

She was known as a strong supporter of education for women, a progressive headmistress, and expanded the curriculum, encouraging the students to undertake public service and university entrance examinations. In 1884 she donated an art studio, "The Studio", to the school so that future artist Eirene Mort made good use of it when she attended St Catherine's from 1889 to 1897. She introduced the school's motto In Christo Thesauri Sapientiae at ScientiaI, "In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge". In 1890, Phillips wrote to a newspaper asking for an afternoon recital of the Halle-Neruda concert rather than the crowded evening concerts so she could take more of her students.

University of Sydney In July 1890, she wrote a letter to the editor of the Sydney Morning Herald in response to an article written by a man saying that women had not achieved anything great, especially in poetry, drama and music. In her letter, she mentioned that Phillipa Fawcett had earned the highest marks in mathematics at Cambridge University after gaining a scholarship to Newnham College. Phillips supported the establishment of the proposed Women's College at Sydney University to similarly support women's education and wrote to both The Sydney Morning Herald and The Bulletin. A history of the Women's College states that generally, the Sydney Morning Herald was supportive of the proposed Women's College and reported favourably on the progress of fundraising for it while The Bulletin was generally derisive of the need for a Women's College.

In 1890, she was visited by two university professors who asked her to become the first tutor to women students at the University of Sydney. who had been a fellow student at Bedford College, and Phillippa Fawcett. where she learned more about the work of the college mission. The mission involved university students in charitable works and educating poorer people in the area in the settlement movement tradition.

From 1891 to 1892, she became the first tutor to women students at Sydney University. In accepting the offer of this position, she resigned as principal of St Catherine's and postponed her intention to travel to northern India to help a missionary friend, Elizabeth Clay. In most official university sources she is listed as "Tutor to the Women Students–Helen P. Phillips (Bedford College)" under the Faculty of Medicine while in a few other sources she is described as the first acting principal of Women's College, University of Sydney but she was not the first principal who was Louisa Macdonald. Phillips herself corrected that in a letter to the Sydney Morning Herald in 1911. The statement of duties given to Phillips by the university said that she was to be "a guardian and friend" to the women students. While she was a tutor at the university, Phillips instigated the formation of its Women's Society which helped disadvantaged people in Sydney, visited patients in hospitals and set up night schools particularly focussing on a night school for girls at Millers Point, North Sydney. Phillips was succeeded as tutor by Jane Foss Russell (later Barff) in 1892.

Educator and missionary

From 1892 to 1905 Phillips spent 13 years in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) as a missionary where she founded industrial schools for boys and girls and established the Sinhalese Women Teachers Vernacular Training School in Colombo after she returned from her second furlough in 1904.

David Weerasooriya, Christian "Chieftain" or "Aratchi" of the Buddhist district and village of Dodanduwa and father of Arnolis Weerasooriya, lent her his house for three years until she could build one of her own and the mission compound school. The subjects taught at the schools such as wood carving, bookbinding, printing, lacemaking, and tailoring were intended to help the children gain employment and pass government teaching or trade examinations so they could earn a living or become teachers in the mission schools. visited her brother in Taree, twice giving a missionary talk there, and exhibited the lacework in Melbourne. In 1904 on her second furlough, she stayed again in Taree as well as Sydney and spoke in the regional towns of Goulburn and Wagga Wagga. In Sydney she addressed the public meeting for the 79th anniversary of the NSW Church Missionary Society, presided over by the Archbishop of Sydney with Bishop William Ridley speaking on the same platform.

Phillips retired from the mission field in 1905 because of ill health and returned to England, then Australia. In 1911 the old girls of St Catherine's school arranged a tea party welcome home for her at the Queen Victoria Club.

Anglican church benefactor and retirement In 1885 Phillips had bought land in Blackheath, in the Blue Mountains of NSW, where she built a holiday house which she kept until 1893. After retiring from missionary work, she bought another house in 1913 in Blackheath but maintained her connections with Ceylon. That same year she re-visited Ceylon and then wrote a memoir of her time there when she returned to Blackheath in 1914.

In 1919 there was an exhibition of CMS mission products in the chapter house St Andrews Cathedral, Sydney. Phillips staffed the Ceylon stall displaying the crafts of her old schools at Dodanduwa

She attended St Luke's Anglican church at Medlow Bath near Blackheath and became a significant benefactor. Although Anglican, it was also known as an ecumenical and community church.

Death and legacy Helen Phillips died at Gordon, Sydney NSW on 25 May 1929, her funeral service was held at St John's Church of England, Gordon and she is buried at Macquarie Park Cemetery, Ryde, NSW (then Northern Suburbs General Cemetery)

The Anglican historian Woolston sums up Phillips legacy as: "...with profound Christian faith she was a leader when women were just beginning to emerge from educational poverty."

Her legacy was:

education of girls and women in 19th Century Australia entrance of more women students into the University of Sydney from St Catherine's school and through her early support as the first women's tutor establishment of the University of Sydney Women's Society and its settlement work teacher training for Sinhalese women trades and teacher training for Dodanduwa boys and girls establishment of a CMS mission in Dodanduwa in Ceylon/Sri Lanka furniture and stained glass window for St Luke's Anglican church, Medlow Bath, NSW.