William Kerr (1738–1824), MD, Surgeon at Northampton General Infirmary (1763–1824)

Phillips's portrait of William Kerr, the surgeon at Northampton General Infirmary from 1811 documents a provincial medical career of unusual dedication and duration—sixty years of service at a single institution that represented the opposite of the metropolitan celebrity medicine that produced portraits by fashionable London painters. Kerr's six decades at Northampton General made him an institutional fixture of provincial medical life, and his portrait served the hospital's record of its significant contributors. Phillips's willingness to travel to provincial commissions gave his portrait practice a geographic breadth that reflected both his commercial ambition and his recognition that significant subjects were distributed throughout Britain rather than concentrated exclusively in London.

The portrait captures the elderly surgeon near the end of his extraordinary career, with Phillips rendering the aged features with respectful observation. The institutional setting of the portrait's display adds layers of meaning, connecting the sitter to the hospital he served. The handling is professional, appropriate to an institutional commission.