He was born on 4 April 1889, the son of Captain Geoffrey Stanley Phipps-Hornby, an officer of the Rifle Brigade, and his wife Jessie (née Gunston), members of a distinguished family of landed gentry.

He grew up at Sandley Hall, near Gillingham in Dorset, where his father, after retiring from the Army, was joint owner and manager of the Compton Stud, breeding thoroughbreds and hunters.

[28] A stained glass window in the north aisle of the Church of St Michael and All Angels, Somerton, was commissioned by his family in thanks for his safe return from the war that had taken so many of his relations.

[34] In April 1939, on reaching the normal age limit for liability for recall, he was removed from the Reserve of Officers,[35] but returned to active service on the outbreak of the Second World War, during which he was promoted to Colonel.

[37] He spent his final years with his wife and their Pekingeses[38] on the Phipps-Hornby family estate in Lordington, near Chichester, West Sussex, (of which much of the land had been sold)[39] where he died in 1967.