Mrs F. R. Phillips
Mrs F. R. Phillips (born Mary Ann Dunn, 1830 – 10 December 1899) was an English entertainer and songwriter, who was one of the music halls' first female performers. Biography. She was born in Tottenham, London, as Mary Ann Dunn, and in 1853 married Frederick Powys Royle, described as a "professor of music". By the early 1860s, she had become a popular performer at music halls in London. She wrote the lyrics of, and performed, one of several versions of a song, "No Irish Need Apply", adapting a tune performed earlier by Tom Hudson as "The Spider  and the Fly". Similar songs entitled "No Irish Need Apply" were sung in the United States at around the same time and it is unclear whether or not Mrs Phillips' song was the original. Mrs Phillips' version alluded to the supposed ban on Irish men working at the Great Exhibition in 1851. One version of Mrs Phillips' lyrics included these verses: Impresario Charles Morton described her as a "rich-toned acting vocalist". A review in "The Era" in 1872 said of her: "This lady has been long before the public and she is, without question, one of that public's  greatest favourites. Strange to say, she has achieved her position without the aid of a good voice... [But] Mrs Phillips has a style peculiarly her own and her songs are invariably so well written and are given with such expression that she never fails to take her audience by storm." In later years, she performed as Ma Phillips. She gave her final performance in 1887, and died in Lambeth in 1899.