Phyllis Devereux was born on 14th March 1914 in London, the third of six children. After a period of living in Wales, she moved to Shirley in 1920.
In 1930, she started work as a draughtswoman for The Metal Propellor Company, Purley Way and later worked for the London Passenger Transport Board at Thornton Heath Pond followed by a period with Engineering, a technical journal. During the war, she worked for the Royal Dutch Shell Oil Company at Teddington followed by periods of employment with the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and the Kuwait Oil Company. Between 1949 and her retirement in 1970, she worked at the Geological Museum, Knightsbridge. She currently lives in Caterham.