Adrian Phillips, in the book The Warminster Trail, compiled for the Warminster Festival 1989, and published by Aris & Phillips Ltd., wrote:
Canon Sir James Erasmus Philipps was one of the great benefactors of the town [Warminster].
He was born in 1824 at Boyton, just to the east of Warminster. He married on his appointment as Vicar of Warminster in 1859 and had a large family.
He was responsible for much of the religious life and buildings of Warminster in the second half of the 19th century.
Some are on our Trail: the restoration of the Minster Church of St. Denys, St. Boniface College, and the Community of St. Denys (Ivy House).
He also founded or built: St. Monica’s Girls School (now part of theWarminster School); the Minster C. of E. Primary School; the Cottage Hospital in 1866; the very splendid church of St. John’s (in Boreham Road).
All these buildings and foundations remain a remarkable memorial to a man who eventually died in Salisbury Cathedral Close in 1912.