Hannah Gregory was born on 11th April 1797 to William and Sarah (nee Withers), the fourth of their ten children. Hannah was baptised at Boldre Church on 14th May 1797.

 

The Rev Comyn's notebooks show that, in 1817, William, Sarah and their children lived on the site of the property now called Fir Tree Cottage. Curiously, the 1851 and 1861 censuses indicate that, although records show that the family lived in Beaulieu Rails, that Hannah was born in Colchester in Essex. The 1871 census gives her place of birth as London.​

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Aged 16, Hannah married William Phillips, aged 18, on 23rd October 1813 at Beaulieu church. Together they had twelve children in 25 years. ​Written circa 1817, Rev Comyn's notebooks record them as living where the house called 'The Saeter' is now.

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The 1841 census records Hannah and William, a farmer, as living in East End with 8 of their children aged between 19 and 3 months.

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​In 1851, five of their daughters and two grandchildren were living with Hannah and William in Beaulieu Rails, including daughter Ellen and her infant George and widowed daughter Martha Cooper and her daughter Mary Ann.  

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By 1861 their household on Scrubs Hill, East End is much smaller, just William, Hannah and 20 year old daughter Jane.

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William died in 1868 and, a year before Hannah's death, the 1871 census shows her living alone in Sheep Wash aged 74.

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Hannah was buried at the chapel on 3rd November 1872 by the Rev John Bartlett Burt. ​The epitaph is from hymn 110 by Isaac Watts about the triumph over death in hope of the resurrection.