FOX, GEORGE (1624-91) was born in 1624 at Drayton in Leicestershire, the son of a weaver. As a child he was unusually serious and sensitive to right and wrong. His relatives thought of educating him as a clergyman, but he was eventually apprenticed to a shoemaker and grazier. After a time he felt that the com mand of God was for him to leave his family and friends and go forth alone and he went on a series of journeys visiting preachers in search of spiritual guidance.
The influence of his remarkable personality soon made itself felt. The mysticism of Fox was positive and practical; leading him at the outset of his ministry to denounce all kinds of social evils.
In 1647 he began a peripatetic ministry which continued till the closing years of his life, broken by intervals of imprisonment. He was first imprisoned in 1649 at Nottingham, for interrupting a sermon by an impetuous appeal from the Scriptures to the Holy Spirit as the authority and guide. In 165o he was committed to Derby gaol as a blasphemer, and at Derby, the nickname of Quakers was given to Fox and his friends by Justice Gervase Bennett. But Fox won such esteem that while still in gaol he was offered a captaincy in the Parliamentary army which he declined.
He bore his frequent sufferings and hardships with great cour age and found a wide response to his appeal, especially in the north-west of England, among companies of "Seekers." By 1651 other Quaker preachers joined him in his service. The centre of the movement was for some years at Swarthmore Hall, near Ulverstone, the home of Judge Fell, Cromwell's chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, who was friendly to the Quakers, while his wife, Margaret, joined them.
He spent six years in various prisons, at Nottingham Derby (1650-51), Carlisle (1653), Launceston (1656), Lancaster and Scarborough (1664-66) and Worcester , sometimes amid terrible conditions. Throughout his active ministry he found time to issue numerous books and pamphlets. His style was uncouth, his grammar and spelling often faulty, but amid occa sional obscurities and repetitions pregnant phrases occur, while his Journal often shows striking power of narrative. Recent re search has shown that he was more widely read than has been supposed. But it was his presence and spoken words which made the deep impression vividly portrayed in Penn's preface to his Journal, winning universal respect, affection and attention.
By 1666 his strong frame was shattered by severe imprison ment, and henceforth much of his time was given to building up the Quaker community in a church order, which offered freedom of service to men and women and at the same time gave expres sion to the group spirit. Fox also took care to institute careful provision for the poor and for the accurate registration of births, deaths and marriages.
In 1669 he married Margaret, the widow of Judge Fell, but continued his travelling mission, visiting the West Indies and America in 1671-72, Holland and north Germany in 1677, and Holland again in 1681. After his long imprisonment at Worcester, he stayed to recuperate at Swarthmore Hall (1675-77), and re sided there once again in 1678-8o, making use of this time to arrange his papers and prepare his Great Journal. But feeling still the call to a wider service, he went south again, his later years being passed chiefly in and around London, where his wife came at intervals to stay with him.
Notwithstanding failing health he still kept at work, visiting Quaker meetings and families, promoting the establishment of schools, corresponding with the Quaker communities abroad, ad vising his fellow Quakers in difficulties great and small and even interviewing members of parliament to help in the framing of the Toleration Act. He died on Jan. 13, 1691.
Fox's Journal, the work by which he is principally known, was printed in 1694, being edited from his papers by Ellwood. The com plete Journal was edited verbatim in 1911 by Norman Penney, and the Short Journal and itinerary journals in 1925. Folio volumes of Fox's epistles and doctrinal works were issued in 1698 and 1706. In 1852 an edition of his works in eight volumes was published in Philadelphia, but no complete collection has yet been printed.
For Fox's life see Thos. Hodgkin's George Fox (1896) and A. N. Brayshaw's The Personality of George Fox (1919) . (T. E. H.)