David was the son of Charles Harry Phillips, a master tailor and Methodist preacher, and his wife, Edith Harriet Finney, a midwife.

He was educated at Oswestry High School for Boys and then at the University College of South Wales and Monmouth where he studied physics, electrical engineering, and mathematics.

Phillips lead the team which determined in atomic detail the structure of the enzyme lysozyme, which he did in the Davy Faraday Research Laboratories of the Royal Institution in London in 1965.

Lysozyme, which was discovered in 1922 by Alexander Fleming,[17] is found in tear drops, nasal mucus, gastric secretions and egg white.

[20] In the House of Lords, he chaired the select committee on Science and Technology and he is credited with getting Parliament onto the World Wide Web.