Fox family (Falmouth)
Fox family (Falmouth)
The Foxes were an influential family of English Quakers, who had a major part in the development of Falmouth in the 18th and 19th Centuries. Members of the family established the innovative Perran Foundry, G.C. Fox & Co (Shipping Brokers) and the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society, as well as four notable gardens now open to the public. Members of the Fox family still live in the Falmouth area.
History[edit]
In the commotion of the English Civil War, Francis Fox (1606–1670) left his home in Pitton, Wiltshire, or maybe the neighbouring village of Farley for St Germans, Cornwall. Arriving there around 1645, he married Dorothy Kekewick (1627-1693) of Saltash, with whom he had three children: Francis (1647-1704), John (1650-1) and James (1653-1699)...[1]. Francis Jr's grandson George Croker Fox (1728-1787) founded the Shipping Broker GC Fox & Co in 1754 [2] and with his wife Mary Were (1728-1796) had 9 children including George Croker Fox Jr (1752-1807) and Robert Were Fox (1754-1818)[1]. The family moved to Falmouth in about 1760, where, during the American War of Independence, French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars, they made their fortune. Falmouth's position at the western end of the English Channel meant that when merchantmen were unwilling to face the risks of venturing into waters between the warring countries, they could unload at Falmouth, ensuring GC Fox & Co's continuing prosperity[3]. Another of Francis Jr's great-grandchildren, Josiah Fox (1763–1847), was a naval architect disowned by his family for his involvement in the design and construction of the first warships of the United States Navy. Another George Croker Fox (1785-1850) was the author of "The Prometheus of Æschylus and the Electra of Sophocles, Translated" [4] and "The death of Demosthenes, and other original poems: with the Prometheus and Agamemnon of Æschylus, translated from the Greek"[5]
R.W. Fox's children included another Robert Were Fox FRS (1789-1877) who established gardens at Rosehill[6] and Penjerrick, Charles Fox (1797-1878) who created the garden at Trebah and Alfred Fox (1794-1874), who lived at Glendurgan, now a National Trust property [7] Robert Were Fox married in 1814 Maria (1786-1858), the daughter of Robert Barclay (1751-1830) and Rachel Gurney (1755-1794), both members of established Quaker families. Maria's sister Lucy married Fox's cousin, George Croker Fox III(1784–1850), son of George Croker Fox Jr[2]. Robert and Maria had 3 children, Anna Maria Fox (1816–1897), Robert Barclay (known as Barclay) (1817–1855) and Caroline (1819–1871), all of whom were encouraged by their parents to keep journals. Barclay Fox married Jane Gurney Backhouse, another Quaker cousin, but died young and his sons were brought up by the unmarried Anna Maria and Caroline. In the early days of the First World War Falmouth was the only harbour between Bristol and Folkestone authorised to land aliens, and when the financial burden of supporting them became more than the Town Council could bear, the Foxes were at the forefront of launching a Relief Fund for their support. Falmouth, the deepest harbour in Western Europe[8] was once again at the forefront of British maritime activity, though the Fox family fishing enterprises could only be continued by special permission. In the first week of the war twenty-four members of the Fox family held their own Quaker meeting for peace, with prayers and readings. They gathered at Glendurgan for what Wilson Fox described as ‘an historic meeting’, and a group photograph was taken to record the event. [9] Subsequent generations of the Fox family continued to live in Falmouth and remained active in the area. Robert Barclay Fox (1873-1934), the grandson of Barclay Fox the diarist served as High Sheriff of Cornwall in 1920.
Religious Society of Friends[edit]
Many of the Fox family were Quakers, though they were unrelated to George Fox, the founder of the movement who had visited the town in 1655 [10]. They were active locally in the Falmouth Meeting, and regularly attended the London Yearly Meeting. George and Mary Fox were among the first members of the Fox family to be buried in the Quaker Burial Ground in Budock[11]. In the 18th and 19th centuries marriage outside the Society of Friends was frowned upon, which led to many intermarriages within close-knit group of Quaker families. [12]. Thus the Foxes married into other Quaker families [2] including Backhouse, Gurney, Pease, Hustler, Lloyd and Barclay of Bury Hill[13]. At the same time Quaker teaching excluded professions such as arms manufacture and alcohol production, leaving the 'innocent trades' of mining, metal founding, boot and shoe making, weaving, printing, food production, pharmacy, insurance and banking. Joseph Fox (1729-1785) took his Quaker pacifist principles to extreme lengths when during the American Revolutionary War two cutters of which he owned a small share was armed by its other owners, despite his protests, as privateers to capture French merchant ships. The enterprise was successful and when Fox was given his share of the bounty, he commissioned his son Dr Edward Long Fox to travel to Paris to return it to the ships' proprietors. In this he was partially successful and £1,470 was duly paid over in 1785, but the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars prevented him from finding the owners of the rest. Eventually in 1818 he returned to Paris and gave the final £600 to a charity for the relief of French merchant sailors.[14] Joshua Fox (1792-1877) caused a scandal by marrying outside the Society of Friends. His wife, Joanna Flannering, who had lived in Paris and was rumoured to have been a dancer, died in childbirth leaving 3 girls under 2 years old, and Joshua was accepted back into the family [15]. The girls were known for their high spirits which sometimes attracted lectures from their serious-minded cousins. In February 1844 Barclay records arguing with Josephine, the eldest of the three, to convince her of the evils of their late hours and irregular habits.[12] Alfred Fox and Charles Fox (1797–1878) served as Elders of the Falmouth Meeting, and Alfred Fox's eldest son Alfred Lloyd Fox (1829-1885), undertook missions for the Society of Friends in Britain, Syria and Palestine [2]
Commerce and Industry[edit]
George Croker Fox Senior founded G.C. Fox & Co. in 1754 [2]. Over the years the company undertook a wide range of enterprises, including Shipbroking, towage, fish processing and salting for export to Southern Europe, and timber trading. The company remained in family control until the beginning of the 21st century [16].
Members of the Society of Friends were effectively excluded from higher education as entrance to the Universities involved subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England. Thus excluded from the professions, in the 18th and 19th centuries Quakers owned a number of commercial and industrial enterprises out of all proportion to the size of the membership. Robert Were Fox with Samuel Tregelles and others established the Perran Foundry at Perranarworthal in 1791 to supply machinery to the local mines. In 1825 Charles Fox became General Manager of the Perran Foundry, taking over from George Croker Fox III. Charles Fox's nephew, Robert Barclay Fox, managed the foundry from 1842 until it was sold in 1858[17]. They also acquired the Neath Abbey Iron Works in 1792 where larger components were produced, including the first harbourside crane on Falmouth quay in 1805 and some 35 railway locomotives [18]. They subsequently leased the Dyffryn estate mineral rights in 1806 and formed the Neath Abbey Coal Co. The company's Pwll Mawr pit at Bryncoch was said to be, at 200 yards, the deepest pit in the country at that time [19]. Samuel Tregelles' son, the railway engineer Edwin Octavius Tregelles began his apprenticeship at the Neath Abbey Iron Works in about 1810 and continued working there until 1831 [2], as did his nephew, the biblical scholar Samuel Prideaux Tregelles. More locally the Fox family developed the Portreath Tramroad to transport mineral ore from the mines at Scorrier to the harbour at Portreath[20]
International Relations[edit]
Robert Were Fox the Elder was appointed Consul to the USA in 1794 by Letters Patent signed by George Washington, and his son Robert Were Fox the Younger followed him in the post from 1819 to 1854. Alfred Fox was appointed in 1863, and his son Howard Fox, alongside a number of other consular posts, served the USA from 1874 until the Consulate was closed in 1905 [21]. In 1828 Elizabeth Fox, widow of Robert Were Fox the Elder hosted the 9-year-old Queen Maria II of Portugal who visited Falmouth after she had been deposed by her uncle and regent, Miguel I of Portugal.[22]. Alfred Fox also served as Consul for Belgium and Vice-Consul for some dozen other countries, and his son George Henry Fox was consul for Brazil, Portugal, Greece, Finland and Belgium. Howard's son Charles Masson Fox was Consul to Russia and Sweden [2]
Medicine[edit]
The earliest medical Fox was the surgeon Joseph Fox (1729-1785) who married Elizabeth Hingston, daughter of Richard Hingston, a surgeon of Penryn. Of their children, Joseph (d 1832) was a physician at the London Hospital, Edward Long Fox (1762–1835) established an insane asylum at Brislington House, near Bristol, England, and Richard Fox MD (1764-1841) was a physician in Falmouth. Edward Long Fox's grandson was another Edward Long Fox (1832–1902), in whose name an annual public lecture has been endowed at the University of Bristol. According to the Oxford Companion to Medicine, 21 members of the Fox Family went into the medical professions.[23]
Science and Technology[edit]
Robert Were Fox was an FRS with interests in mineralogy, metallurgy and geomagnetism. He was an active member of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS, now called the British Science Association), founded in 1831. He invented an improved version of the Dipping Needle Deflector, a navigational aid for polar explorers. His brother Charles Fox also published scientific papers and ran an innovative Iron Foundry at Perranarworthal. Barclay Fox recorded in his Journal attending the BAAS Annual Meeting in Dublin in August 1835, with his uncle, Charles Fox and his father, Robert Were Fox the Younger who read a paper to the Physics section and demonstrated his Dipping Needle Deflector. Both Barclay and Caroline Fox record regular visits to BAAS Annual Meetings..[12][3] George Croker Fox Jr., Robert Were Fox and Alfred Fox assembled collections of minerals, which were bought by Arthur Russell and are now in the Natural History Museum, London[24]
Caroline and Barclay Fox's journals[edit]
Caroline, Barclay and Anna Maria Fox were offered a guinea by their father to keep journals. Caroline left her journal, which she kept from 1835 to 1871, to her elder sister Anna Maria, who arranged for a selection edited by Horace N Pym to be published in 1882 [25], after which the original manuscripts were burnt at Anna Maria's insistence. A new selection was published in 1972 [3]. Barclay Fox kept his journal from 1832 to 1854, which was published in 1979[12], reprinted with additional material in 2008[26] Anna Maria Fox's journal was never published. These graphic records provide valuable biographical and social insights into life in early Victorian England. Between their visits to London for the Quaker London Yearly Meeting, BAAS Annual Meetings and visitors to the Fox family houses, Caroline and Barclay Fox were acquainted with many eminent Victorians, including Henry de la Beche, John Bowring, John Bright, the eccentric geologist William Buckland and his even more eccentric son Frank Buckland,Thomas and Jane Carlyle, Derwent Coleridge, William Forster, Davies Gilbert, Robert Hunt, Thomas Brown Jordan, Charles Kingsley, Charles Lemon, Frederick Denison Maurice, John Stuart Mill, John Rogers, Dean Stanley, John Sterling, Alfred, Lord Tennyson and George Wightwick.
Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society[edit]
The 3 children of Robert Were Fox had had the idea for the foundation of the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society while still in their teens "To promote the useful and fine arts, to encourage industry, and to elicit the ingenuity of a community distinguished for its mechanical skill"[27]. The idea was enthusiastically taken up by their family who comprised the entire first Committee of the "Poly", elected in January 1833: "Dr Fox, Mr & Mrs R.W. Fox, Mr & Mrs G.C. Fox, Mr T.W. Fox, Mr G.P. Fox, Mr & Mrs A. Fox, Mr J. Fox, Mr & Mrs C. Fox of Perran, Miss Fox and Misses A.M. and C. Fox and Mr R.B. Fox of Bank.".[28]. The "Poly" is still flourishing in Church Street, Falmouth.
References[edit]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Burke, Sir Bernard (1879). Burke's Landed Gentry: A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland. Harrison. p. 595-6. Search this book on
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 Milligan, Edward (2007). Biographical Dictionary of British Quakers in Commerce and Industry 1775-1920. Sessions Book Trust. pp. 181–187. ISBN 978-1-85072-367-7. Search this book on
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Fox, Caroline (1972). Monk, Wendy, ed. The journals of Caroline Fox 1835-71, A selection. Elek. p. 17. ISBN 978-0-236-15447-0. Search this book on
- ↑ Fox, George Croker (1835). The Prometheus of Æschylus and the Electra of Sophocles Translated ... With notes, intended to illustrate the typical character of the former. Also, a few original poems. London: Darton and Harvey. Search this book on
- ↑ Fox, George Croker (1839). The death of Demosthenes, and other original poems: with the Prometheus and Agamemnon of Æschylus, translated from the Greek. London: John Bohn. Search this book on
- ↑ "Fox Rosehill Gardens". Cornwall Gardens Trust. Retrieved 3 August 2021.
- ↑ "Glendurgan Garden". National Trust. Retrieved 3 August 2021.
- ↑ "About Falmouth". Falmouth Town Council. Retrieved 6 August 2021.
- ↑ Richardson, Pamela (December 2008). "A Quaker Record of Maritime Falmouth in World War One" (PDF). TROZE The Online Journal of the National Maritime Museum Cornwall. 1 (2). Retrieved 6 August 2021.
- ↑ Gay, Susan E (1903). Old Falmouth. Headley Brothers. Retrieved 3 August 2021. Search this book on
- ↑ "George Croker Fox". Find A Grave. Retrieved 3 August 2021.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 Fox, Barclay (1979). Brett, R.L., ed. Barclay Fox's Journal. London: Bell & Hyman. ISBN 9780713518658. Search this book on
- ↑ "Barclay of Bury Hill and Eastwick Park". Landed families of Britain and Ireland. Retrieved 3 August 2021.
- ↑ Foster, Joseph (1872). A revised genealogical account of the various families descended from Francis Fox of St. Germans, Cornwall. Head, Hole & Co. pp. 12–13. Search this book on
- ↑ Barder, Brian. "The Triebners of Germany, Georgia and England". Brian Barder’s website. Retrieved 4 August 2021.
- ↑ "Fox Family". Grace's Guide to British Industrial History. Retrieved 3 August 2021.
- ↑ "Perran Foundry". Grace's Guide to British Industrial History. Retrieved 3 August 2021.
- ↑ "Neath Abbey Iron Co". Grace's Guide to British Industrial History. Retrieved 3 August 2021.
- ↑ "Bryncoch". Welsh Coal Mines. Retrieved 3 August 2021.
- ↑ "Portreath Tramroad". Grace's Guide to British Industrial History. Retrieved 3 August 2021.
- ↑ "Frequently Asked Historical Questions". US Department of State Archive 2001-2009. Retrieved 3 August 2021.
- ↑ Gay, Susan E (1903). Old Falmouth. Headley Brothers. pp. 151–2. Retrieved 3 August 2021. Search this book on
- ↑ Lock, Stephen; Last, John M.; Dunea, George (2001). The Oxford Illustrated Companion to Medicine. p. 696. Search this book on
- ↑ Embery, P.G.; Symes, R.F. (1987). Minerals of Cornwall and Devon. London: Natural History Museum Publications. ISBN 9780565010461. Search this book on
- ↑ Fox, Caroline (1882). Horace N. Pym, ed. Memories of Old Friends. London: Smith, Elder, and Co. Search this book on
- ↑ Fox, Barclay (2008). Brett, R.L.; Fox, Charles, eds. Barclay Fox's Journal 1832-1854: Industrialist, Quaker, Traveller, Cornishman. Cornwall Editions Limited. ISBN 9781904880318. Search this book on
- ↑ "Our History". The Poly. Retrieved 3 August 2021.
- ↑ Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society. (1833), Annual report of the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society, 1
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