PORTRAIT OF COLWYN E. A. PHILIPPS.

Image: Maas Gallery catalogue.

  • Title(s): Portrait of Colwyn E. A. Philipps (this web site); Portrait of Colwyn E.A. Philipps (eldest son of the Viscount St Davids, G.B.E.) (Deutcher & Menzies, 2003); Colwyn Erasmus Arnold Philipps, eldest son of The Viscount St. Davids, G.B.E. (Royal Academy exhibition catalogue, 1931).
  • Description: a boy in a blue top with voluminous sleeves sitting on a chair, facing the viewer, the chair having carved animal heads on the front of the arms, dark interior background, the text ‘COLWYN E. A. PHILLIPS’ painted top left in capitals.
  • Media: oil on canvas (Deutcher & Menzies, 2003).
  • Dimensions: 84.5 x 82.0 cm (Deutcher & Menzies, 2003).
  • Signature/date/other text: “signed indistinctly lower right: Annie/ Swynnerton / inscribed upper left: COLWYN E. A. PHILIPPS” (Deutcher & Menzies, 2003).
  • History:
    • 1897 – exhibited New Gallery, “Mrs Swynnerton’s robust style, her vigorous colour, her admirable modelling are all seen in her Colwyn Philipps, an excellent child’s portrait … unsatisfactory background” (Daily News, London, 10 Jun 1897).
    • 1931 – Exhibited Royal Academy – Summer Exhibition, no. 31 (catalogue) and shown in Royal Academy Illustrated, “COLWYN ERASMUS ARNOLD PHILIPPS, ELDEST SON OF VISCOUNT ST DAVIDS” for that year.
    • 1991 Aug 19 – Auctioned Sotheby’s, Melbourne, Australia.
    • 2003 Nov 26 – Auctioned Deutscher & Menzies, Melbourne, Australia, lot 296/C, “Oil/canvas / 84.5 x 82 cm / signed indistinctly lower right: Annie/ Swynnerton / inscribed upper left: COLWYN E. A. PHILIPPS / Illustrated on page 169 of the catalog”, sold: hammer AU$6,500, premium AU$7,637.50.
    • 2004 – In ‘British Pictures’ catalogue, Maas Gallery, Mayfair, London, ‘for sale’.
  • Location: ?
Leonora Philipps and sons, The Woman’s Signal (newspaper), 1897, Colwyn – the older son – on the ?right.

Colwyn Erasmus Arnold Philipps was a son of Leonora Philipps, a prominent suffrage campaigner, and the Viscount St. Davids, John Philipps, a Liberal Politician. This portrait was painted c. 1896 when Colwyn was seven or eight.

Colwyn attended Eton and chose an army career, becoming a captain in the Royal Horse Guards. He was a dedicated soldier, as well as a passionate and daring horseman, and a poet and writer. A book of his poems, anecdotes and letters was published after his death.

In one anecdote he tells how while on service in the trenches, he entered a French woman’s house to ask if he could borrow a lamp. The woman refused, saying that the last British soldier to borrow a lamp never returned it. He replied that she was being petty, as British soldiers were lending their lives for France, but immediately regretted his abruptness. However, after disappearing for a moment, she reappeared with two lamps and told him to keep them.

Colwyn’s mother died unexpectedly in March 1915, aged only 52. Colwyn himself lost his life just two months later, his last moments described in a short memoir by another soldier who was trying to reach him, describing how Colwyn was leading an attack on an opposing line, charging into what was described as a “hailstorm” of bullets. Only his kit bag was recovered, his body being lost on the battlefield. In the bag a notebook was found, with the following lines written (Colwyn’s spelling and grammatical errors included):

There is a healing magic in the night,
The breeze blows cleaner than it did by day,
Forgot the fever of the fuller light,
And sorrow sinks insensibly away
As if some saint a cool white hand did lay
Upon the brow, and calm the restless brain.
The moon looks down with pale unpassioned ray
Sufficient for the hour is its pain.
Be still and feel the night that hides away earth’s stain.
Be still and loose the sense of God in you,
Be still and send your soul into the all,
The vasty distance where the stars shine blue,
No longer antlike on the earth to crawl.
Released from time and sense of great or small
Float on the pinions of the Night-Queen’s wings;
Soar till the swift inevitable fall
Will drag you back into all the world’s small things;
Yet for an hour be one with all escaped things.

Poems, letter and memoirs or Colwyn Philipps, 1915.

The only other child in the family, Roland, was killed on active service the following year.

John Philipps remarried in 1917, had two more sons and remained active in politics. As a member of the House of Lords, his last speech, 6 Jul 1927, was a call for the equal treatment of women when they became eligible for peerage, pointing out that the Prime Minister was allowed to make a judgement on their fitness and character while men were automatically admitted without such questioning.

Sources:

Page last updated 25 Oct 2025.