Nine years later, on the death of Hugh Edwin Strickland, who had acted as substitute for Dean Buckland in the readership of geology in the University of Oxford, Phillips succeeded to the post of deputy. At the dean's death during 1856, Phillips became himself reader, a post which he had to the time of his death. During his residence in Oxford he had a major part in the foundation and arrangement of the University Museum established during 1859 (see his "Notices of Rocks and Fossils in the University Museum", 1863; and "The Oxford Museum", by H. W. Acland and J. Ruskin, 1859; reprinted with additions 1893). Phillips was also keeper of the Ashmolean Museum from 1854–1870. During 1859–1860 he was president of the Geological Society of London, and during 1865 president of the British Association. Phillips also made astronomical observations of the planet Mars during its 1862 opposition.