Phyllis Digby Morton

Phyllis May Digby-Morton, born Phyllis May Panting, (1901 – 28 April 1984 ) was a British fashion journalist who was the innovative editor of Woman and Beauty. During the Second World War, she survived an attack by a German U-boat on a ship on which she and her husband were travelling.

Early life Phyllis Panting was the daughter of James Harwood Panting, a writer of school stories for boys, and Bertha Emily Panting. She was born in Brixton, London, in 1901 where she lived at the family home of 47 Beechdale, Brixton Hill with her parents, her sister Ruth and her brothers Ray and Arnold. Panting was educated at St Paul's Girls' School, and her early career was in the BBC drama department where she wrote scripts and acted. By the late 1920s Panting was in journalism and editor of the children's paper My Favourite.

Marriage In 1917, a Phyllis M. Panting married a Noel E. Herberte in the Kensington district of London.

In 1936, Phyllis Panting married the fashion designer Henry Digby-Morton. The author H. G. Wells was the best man at their wedding.

Woman and Beauty Digby-Morton's editorship of Woman and Beauty was noted for breaking new ground in the women's magazine market, not always to the comfort of the board of Fleetway Publications, the owners. Previously dominated by subjects such as needlework and cookery, Digby-Morton introduced "virginity, frigidity, fertility and infidelity". She later recalled, "We tackled all the 'ity' subjects and what a fuss they caused with all those gentlemen on the Fleetway board". Her husband, Henry Digby-Morton, thought that Phyllis really rather liked controversy, saying "Her idea of bliss is to sit between Lord Beaverbrook and Lord Rothermere and argue madly about the woman's point of view." The Digby-Morton couple was among the 91 paying passengers. On the first night at sea Phyllis sat at the Captain's table in the massive dining room. She asked the captain, Landles Nicoll, why he hadn't brought his daughters with him on the voyage. He replied "I as soon put their hands in the fire." Digby-Morton thought the whole overseas reception scheme was a bad idea.

Later career Digby Morton was later beauty editor of Woman's Own and consultant editor of that magazine. Away from magazines, Digby Morton worked as a consultant for cosmetics companies and the high street chemists Boots. She was a regular on Woman's Hour.