 Charles Phillips was born on 24 April 1901, the son of Harold and Mary Elizabeth.His parents had met in London and were married on 14 October 1899.Harold Phillips had started to suffer from depression around 1893, and despite a number of "crises" during the short engagement, as Charles Phillips would later describe them, apparently no efforts were made to apprise his fiancée's family of his condition; nevertheless, none of her relatives showed up for the wedding.