She became active in her local Fulham Labour Party and in 1930 married fellow Fulham activist Morgan Phillips,[1] a former miner and later the General Secretary of the Labour Party 1944–1961.
They had a son and a daughter, Gwyneth Dunwoody, who became a long-serving Labour Member of Parliament.
Phillips was a long-serving London magistrate and co-founder of the National Association of Women's Clubs (1935).
[2] She was made a life peer on 21 December 1964 as Baroness Phillips, of Fulham in the County of London[3] and was the first female government whip in the House of Lords, as Baroness-in-Waiting 1965–70.
She championed consumer issues and in 1965 founded the Housewives Trust to help shoppers obtain better value for money.