Family Tree Family Group Sheet
Philip was born on 23 May 1903 at 34 Filey Avenue. He was born at 4.55am and like that of his brothers, his was a quick and straightforward delivery; he was born before the doctor arrived! Although he was the last of Lil's children, there would have been one more, but Lil miscarried at 2 months in May 1906. Phil was christened at St Michaels Church, Stoke Newington on 12 July 1903 with Daisy Bolton and his uncle Harold as godparents.
When he was 4½, Phil was sent to infants' school for the first time, but he had to be taken away, as he got repeated colds. In April 1909, he had his adenoids removed. However, he still managed to get pneumonia in the first days of 1910.
In 1917, Phil won a Middlesex Junior Scholarship. This entitled him to free schooling plus £6 in the first year, increasing to £12 in the fourth year. He took his matric. in 1918 when he was just 15 and passed with honours. Philip was confirmed at St Paul's Cathedral by the Bishop of Stepney in November, 1918. Also that year, when he was still only 15, he stood in for Mr Judd by playing the organ in church for three Sundays while Mr Judd was on holiday.
In June 1921, Philip won the Andrews Scholarship of £25 pa to the University of London. Then in July, he won at the school sports, the high jump (5' 4" - a record) and the long jump (19' 2½" - also a record). A week later, on 22 July, he left school!
On 9 August 1923, when he was 20, Phil was officially appointed Organist at Christ Church, Southgate succeeding Mr Judd. Later that year in October, he sat his final examinations for his BSc degree and on 24 November heard that he had passed with first class honours.
During July 1924, Phil was offered an appointment as a Junior Assistant at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Teddington, Middlesex. This he accepted and on 5 August 1924 he started work. He was paid £272 pa with 36 working days holiday (ie six weeks at that time). This amount of holiday was standard then for the NPL as it was trying to attract men who would be tempted by University conditions of employment. In June 1924, Phil had paid £63 for a motor bike and this enabled him to do the journey to Teddington in an acceptable 1¼ hours. (This is equivalent to about £2500 in 2010 money terms.)
His early work at the NPL was as part of the Metrology Division's successful efforts to improve the scientific quality of volumetric glassware and hydrometers made by British manufacturers.
As well as his income from the NPL, Phil was paid £13 per quarter as Organist at Christ Church, and this, together with the fees he earned for weddings and funerals, generally a guinea each, enabled him to save at a pretty good rate, roughly £100 to £150 a year.
In spite of the motor bike, or perhaps because of it, the journey during the winter proved pretty dreadful, so the following summer, his father bought an Austin 7 motor car for him to use, the bargain being that Phil would continue to live at home and use the car to go to work, paying the car's upkeep rather than going to live in Teddington to be near his work.
On 28 December 1925 Phil took Joan Bradshaw to see the film of Peter Pan at the Palladium, and during his birthday party the following year, their engagement was announced. Interestingly, in October the following year Phil paid 5/- for a driving licence for Joan. There was no compulsory driving test at that time and she kept her licence active until she learnt to drive many years later!
On 1st June, 1926, Phil played the organ at St Paul's Cathedral at a Women's Union Service.
The couple must have decided to buy a house in Hampton some time in 1927 because in November of that year, Phil paid £810 plus fees of about £30 for the house at 25 Gloucester Road. He financed this by £520 from savings, an interest free loan of £200 from William Sawyer, Joan's grandfather, and an initial overdraft of £120 with his new bank, Westminster Bank. The couple were married at Christ Church on 26th May, 1928. Phil's salary at the time of the wedding was £320 pa and as a result of furnishing the house at Hampton, the overdraft had peaked at about £300. Over the next few years, this was steadily reduced by about £50 each year. It was finally paid off on 5 March 1933 although the interest free loan from William Sawyer, which he had reduced by £50 to £150 as a wedding present, was still outstanding.
Phil and Joan lived at 25 Gloucester Road for about 10 years. Their first two children, Anthony Philip and Frances Joan were born there on 21 April 1930 and 27 June 1931 respectively. They seem to have had more than their fair share of ill health during this period. In January 1933, Phil and Joan were both ill with flu. Phil and Anthony went to Ruislip while Joan and Frances went to Southgate. Later that year, Anthony was quite seriously ill and was in Great Ormond Street Hospital for 2 weeks.
William Sawyer died on 3 January 1934. By agreement, the outstanding loan, which following their wedding, was £150, had never been repaid. However, on his death, one tenth of his residuary estate was left to Joan and this amounted to £381, thus enabling the loan to be repaid leaving them with a net benefit of £231.
Following this influx of funds, Phil's bank account was converted to a joint account for Joan and Phil although Joan never had a cheque book of her own until the 1950's! About £50 was spent on extending the dining room and redecorating the exterior of the house - and £100 was given to Louie Paris to help provide her with some sort of a pension. Louie had originally been employed as a nursemaid by William and Mary Sawyer, and in the 1881 census was recorded there as 12 years old. She had remained in their service ever since and although William Sawyer left her £250 in his will, I assume that Joan thought this was insufficient recompense for over 50 years of service.
Also in 1934, Phil was appointed as a Scientific Officer at the NPL at a salary of £451pa.
Both children were sent to local schools; Anthony started at Denmead, in Wensleydale Road in the autumn of 1935 and Frances at Five Beeches, in Ormond Avenue a year later. Anthony did not settle at Denmead so after a year he was sent to The Mall School in Strawberry Hill instead.
On 7 January 1937 Joan went into hospital with suspect gall stones. Phil's mother came to Hampton to take charge. The investigation confirmed that an operation was required and this took place on 15 January when her gall stones and gall bladder were removed. On 18 January Lil returned to Ruislip with the children who were sent to the local council school for the spring term. Both The Mall and Five Beeches waived their fees for the term. However, with the cost of the operation being thirty guineas and the hospital fees being a further ten guineas, this was a time of severe financial pressure on the family.
Fortunately, following the operation, Joan made a good recovery and by the summer of 1937, she was pregnant again! As a result they decided to move to a bigger house and chose one being built just opposite Five Beeches at 56 Ormond Avenue. The deal was finalised in February, 1938 and a deposit of £25 paid. The house cost £1150 and this was financed by means of £750 from the sale of 25 Gloucester Road and a mortgage of £500 at a fixed rate of 4¼% over 23 years making a monthly repayment of £2/15/10. Arthur Hawkins gave them the oak strip flooring and this was installed throughout the ground floor except for the kitchen.
The sale price of £750 for the house at Gloucester Road represented a loss of 7½% of its purchase price, but as the 1930s were a period of deflation and prices generally were about 5% lower than when the house was purchased, this is perhaps not too surprising.
Malcolm David was born in Gloucester Road on 18 March 1938. He weighed 11lb. The family moved to 56 Ormond Avenue at the end of the following May.
Phil started an allotment on a plot in Ormond Crescent in 1940. This he kept up until the owner wanted to build on the land some 10 years later. During the war years, he also grew vegetables in the garden in Ormond Avenue and kept chickens, rabbits and bees there. The chickens were grown from day-old chicks and were normally kept for a year before being killed for food and replaced by another lot. The rabbits were kept until they were fully grown and then killed for food. Their pelts were sold. This regular killing of his stock must have been an unpleasant task for him but it did provide a welcome addition to the rationed food available during the war.
In April 1945, Phil and Joan had a telephone installed for the first time, and in 1946 the family went on its first holiday since the war began. They went camping in Bossiney, Cornwall for three weeks. Camping was the normal family holiday until Malcolm left to go to University in 1956.
In 1946, Phil assumed responsibility for volumetric work and hydrometry. In 1954 he took over as head of the Physical Group of the Metrology Division, responsible for standards for Interferometry, density and g, Line standards, mass, volume, density and pressure.
Formal letter of thanks for his work at the NPL from Sir Richard Clarke, Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Technology