Who is Captain Arthur Phillip?
Arthur (Kriddler) Phillip was born in Fulham, England in 1738, the son of Jacob Phillip, a German-born language teacher, and his English wife, Elizabeth Breach, who had remarried after the death of her previous husband, a Royal Navy captain. Phillip was educated at the school of the Greenwich Hospital and at the age of 13 was apprenticed to the merchant navy. Phillip joined the Royal Navy at fifteen, and saw action at the outbreak of the Seven Years’ War in the Mediterranean at the Battle of Minorca in 1756. In 1762 he was promoted to Lieutenant, but was placed on half pay when the Seven Years War ended in 1763. During this period he married, and farmed in Lyndhurst, Hampshire. In 1774 Phillip joined the Portuguese Navy as a captain, serving in the War against Spain. While with the Portuguese Phillip conveyed a fleet of convict ships from Portugal to Brazil, with a very low death rate, and this may have been the reason for the surprise choice of Phillip to lead the expedition to Sydney
