Jessica Trethowan has sent me two pictures of her grandfather, Henry Phillips.

Henry was born in 1898. So he was 18 in 1916. He started his Chemistry Degree at University College, London (UCL) before being conscripted into the Armed Forces. He was in Italy as a soldier during World War 1 but returned to UCL to finish his BSc degree in chemistry after the war.

Its understood that he started worked at the photographic company of Thomas Illingworth at Cumberland Avenue, Park Royal, London NW10, during the 1920s.
The first picture is thought to have been taken in the early 1930s, at a time when Illingworth's had been taken over by Ilford and Henry Phillips became an Ilford employee. He is believed to have worked as a chemist on the composition of the light sensitive emulsions used for coating photographic paper. From 1928 the Illingworth company was progressively absorbed into the Ilford organisation. The site at Park Royal was fully used for paper production until the mid-1930s when the emulsion-making and coating operations were transferred to Mobberley, Cheshire, the factory of the old Rajar company. Hence, the first photograph might have been taken at Park Royal or Mobberley, though most likely Park Royal.

The 2nd photograph of Henry (scroll down) is believed to date to the 1950s, taken at the Mobberley factory laboratory.

Henry continued his employment with Ilford Ltd at Mobberley, Cheshire, the current home of Ilford Photo. In the 1950s the Mobberley site was Ilford’s centre for photographic paper research, manufacture and packaging.

Henry Phillips is named in an Ilford Patent dated December 16th, 1947, entitled "Treatment of Developed Silver Images with Mercapto-Tetrazole and Triazole Compounds". This treatment was found to enhance the tonal quality of the printed image.

Jessica Trethowan also tells me that a famly friend was the wife of the chief chemist, Olaf Bloch.