Wasn't the first implementation of BitcoinQt written in PHP?
No. The first version of bitcoin was didn't use QT it was command line only however it was C++. QT is a C++ library there has never been any version of the "bitcoin client" (later named bitcoin-qt) written in php.
There was a WX front-end when I first got to compiling things IIRC (though I've never compiled a gui at all in any version.) Written by that guy who later (claimed to have) had like 9000 BTC stolen from his machine. cdecker?