William Sands Cox (1802–1875), Surgeon and Co-Founder of Queen's College, Birmingham

Phillips's early portrait of William Sands Cox from around 1808 depicts the Birmingham surgeon and educator who co-founded Queen's College Birmingham—one of the provincial educational institutions that represented the early Victorian expansion of higher education beyond Oxford and Cambridge. Cox's later work in establishing the College of Surgeons in Birmingham contributed to the development of British medical education, and his early portrait documents a figure whose significance would only become fully apparent decades later. Phillips's Birmingham connections and institutional portrait practice placed him in contact with the provincial professional and intellectual elite that was driving Britain's economic and cultural expansion during the early nineteenth century.

The medical portrait follows standard professional conventions, with the sitter's dignity and competence conveyed through pose and expression rather than dramatic effects. Phillips's straightforward handling serves the documentary purpose of institutional portraiture. The palette is restrained, appropriate to the seriousness of a medical professional's likeness.