Richard Whately (1787–1863), STP, Archiep Dublin Socius

Phillips's portrait of Richard Whately from around 1808 depicts the logician, theologian, and future Archbishop of Dublin at the beginning of his Oxford career—before the publication of Elements of Logic (1826) and Elements of Rhetoric (1828) that made him one of the most important English logicians of the early nineteenth century. Whately was a student and later colleague of Copleston at Oriel, and his portrait connects Phillips's academic portraiture to the intellectual network that was transforming Oxford in the years before the Oxford Movement. His subsequent career as Archbishop of Dublin placed him at the center of Irish ecclesiastical controversy, and this early portrait documents him in the Oxford period before his distinctive personality and views had fully formed.

The academic portrait presents Whately with the intellectual bearing appropriate to one of Oxford's sharpest minds. Phillips's handling is competent and straightforward, serving the institutional need for a likeness that captures the sitter's scholarly presence. The composition is conventional but effective.