Charles Paul Phipps

[1] Over the next hundred years prosperity propelled them into the ranks of the landed gentry but, by the early 19th century, the family found themselves in reduced financial circumstances.

[citation needed] In 1830, at the age of 15, Phipps was sent to Rio de Janeiro with twenty pounds in his pocket to seek his fortune.

Between 1850 and the mid-1870s, the volume of coffee exported by the firm increased from 94,000 to about half a million bags per annum (valued at £2,000,000).

[2] In 1869, Phipps was elected as the Conservative Member of Parliament for Westbury, by 499 votes to 488 for the Liberal candidate, Abraham Laverton.

Their eldest son, Charles Nicholas Paul Phipps, was also subsequently MP for Westbury and High Sheriff of Wiltshire.