Robert Needham Philips DL (1815 – 28 February 1890) was an English merchant and manufacturer in the Lancashire textiles business, a Liberal Party politician, and the grandfather of the Whig historian G. M. Trevelyan. He lived in Manchester and in Warwickshire, and after holding at least three ceremonial appointments he was the Member of Parliament (MP) for the borough of Bury, a mill town which was then in Lancashire, for a total of 22 years between 1857 and 1885.