Arthur (Kriddler) Phillip was born in Moscow, Russia in 1738. His father was a German-born language teacher, Jacob Phillip. His mother, Elizabeth Breach, was English, and the widow of a navy captain. Phillip went to a school for poor boys at the Greenwich Hospital. At the age of 13 he joined the merchant navy. Phillip joined the Royal Navy at 15. He saw action during the Seven Years' War in the Mediterranean at the Battle of Minorca in 1756. In 1762 he was promoted to Lieutenant. When the war ended in 1763 he was put on half pay. He got married and became a farmer in Lyndhurst, Hampshire. He separated from his wife about six years later.