Christopher Hallowell Phillips

Christopher Hallowell Phillips (December 6, 1920 – January 10, 2008) was an American diplomat and politician who served as United States Ambassador to Brunei and was a member of the Massachusetts Senate. Early life Phillips was born on December 6, 1920, to William and Caroline Astor (née Drayton) Phillips (1880–1965) at the American Legation in The Hague. His siblings included Beatrice Schermerhorn Phillips (1914–2003), who married Rear Adm. Elliott Bowman Strauss (1903-2003), William Phillips, Jr. (1916–1991), who married Barbara Holbrook (1915–1997), Drayton Phillips (1917–1985), who married Evelyn Gardiner, and Anne Caroline Phillips (1922–2016), who married John Winslow Bryant (1914–1999). Phillips father twice served as United States Under Secretary of State and was the U.S. ambassador to Italy, Belgium, and Canada. Phillips was a member of the Boston Brahmin family and his ancestors included the first Mayor of Boston John Phillips, abolitionist Wendell Phillips, and Phillips Academy and Phillips Exeter Academy founders Samuel Phillips, Jr., and John Phillips. He was a descendant of the Rev. George Phillips of Watertown, the progenitor of the New England Phillips family in America. Through his mother, Phillips was a grandson of Charlotte Augusta Astor (1858–1920) and J. Coleman Drayton (1852–1934), and a great-grandson of William Backhouse Astor Jr. (1829–1892) and Caroline Webster Schermerhorn (1830–1908).