He joined Cheshire Constabulary on the 3rd May 1902 as Constable 396 having previously been employed as a 'Potters Pressman'. His initial posting was to Crewe Division and in 1907 he was promoted Acting Sergeant and posted to Aston, Nantwich Division. In March 1909 he was promoted to substantive Sergeant and posted to Tarporley followed by a posting in 1911 to New Brighton in the North Wirral Division where he became the resident Sergeant at New Brighton Police Station. On the formation of the Wallasey Borough Police on the 1st April 1913 he opted to transfer his service to that force and was promoted to Inspector. On 18th November 1914 shortly after the outbreak of war he enlisted as Private Number 22810 with the 20th Battalion Kings Liverpool Regiment and very quickly rose to the rank of CQMS (Company Quarter Master Sergeant) he went to France with the British Expeditionary Force on the 7th November 1915. On the first day of the Somme battle, 1st July 1916 he was killed in action in what was known as The Battle of Albert (1–13 July 1916) which comprised the first two weeks of Anglo-French offensive operations in the Battle of the Somme. When Arthur lost his life he was thirty five years of age. He is remembered on the Thiepval Memorial which contains the names of 73,000 British & South African troops who fell on the Somme between July 1916 and March 1918 and who have no known grave. He left a wife Mary and four children the youngest being only two years of age, Mary would receive a weekly widows pension from the War Department of 26/6d. Sergeant Phillips was awarded the 1914-15 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal. His family would receive the Memorial Plaque, commonly known as the Death Penny and Memorial Scroll.   News Report A Braver Man Never Breathed Mrs. Phillips, the wife of the late Inspector Phillips, of the Wallasey Police Force, whose death at the front we reported last week, has received a letter from Captain E.C. Orford, expressing his sympathy. “Not only,” he said “was he invaluable to me as quartermaster-sergeant, but I had a great affection for him, having been with his company from November, 1914. A cooler, braver man never breathed. He WAS a man. We have placed a Plaque with your name on around Police HQ, and children are making a Poppy mosaic which will contain your name. We will remember you. On the 15th June 2018, ACC Ian Critchley held a plaque with your name on, whilst filming for Merseyside Police to commemorate those that fell in WW1.

Merseyside Police