Phillips, John Guest

John Guest Phillips was born in Swansea and educated at Llanelli Boys' Grammar School and the University of Liverpool, where, after gaining his Bsc, he joined the research group of Chester Jones to complete a PhD in endocrinology. Following his doctorate his took up a fellowship at the Bingham Oceanographic Laboratory at Yale University with Grace E. Pickford. After a lectureship at Sheffield University, Phillips was appointed to the Chair of Zoology at the University of Hong Kong.

He returned to the United Kingdom to become Professor of Zoology from 1967-1979, and Dean of the Faculty of Science 1978-1980 at the University of Hull, Director of the Wolfson Institute for Gerontology 1979-1986, and later Vice-Chancellor of Loughborough University 1986-1987. He was Secretary of the Zoological Society of London. His research was predominantly in the fields of endocrinology, notably concerning the salt glands of sea birds, and the biological basis of ageing.