FOX, SIR STEPHEN (1627-1716), English statesman, born on March 27, 5627, was the son of William Fox, of Farley in Wiltshire, a yeoman farmer. At 15 he entered the service of the earl of Northumberland ; then he entered the service of Lord Percy, the earl's brother, and was present with the royalist army at the battle of Worcester (Sept. 3, 1651) as Lord Percy's deputy at the ordnance board. Accompanying Charles II. in his flight to the continent, he was appointed manager of the royal household, on Clarendon's recommendation. He was employed on several important missions, and acted eventually as intermediary be tween the king and General Monk. After the Restoration he was appointed to the lucrative offices of first clerk of the board of green cloth and paymaster-general of the forces. He entered parliament in 1661, was knighted (1665), and was a commissioner of the treasury from 1679 to 1702. In 168o he resigned the pay mastership and was made first commissioner of horse. In 1684 he became sole commissioner of horse. He was offered a peerage by James II., on condition of turning Roman Catholic, but re fused. In 1685 he was again M.P. for Salisbury and opposed the bill for a standing army supported by the king. During the Revolution he maintained an attitude of decent reserve, but was confirmed in his offices by William III. He died on Oct. 28, 1716. He contributed .113,000 to Chelsea hospital, the mili tary pensioners' home founded by Charles II. He grew rich in the service of the nation without being suspected of corruption, and without forfeiting the esteem of his contemporaries.
His elder son by his second marriage, with Christian Hopes, Stephen (1704-1776), was created Lord Ilchester and Stavordale in 1747 and earl of Ilchester in 1756; in 1758 he took the addi tional name of Strangways, and his descendants, the family of Fox-Strangways, still hold the earldom of Ilchester. The younger son, Henry, became the 1st Lord Holland (q.v.).
See Memoirs of the Life of Sir Stephen Fox, 1st. (1717, reprinted 1807 and 1811) ; and, for Lord Ilchester, Letters to Henry Fox, Lord Holland, with a few addressed to his brother Stephen, Earl of Ilchester (ed. Earl of Ilchester, 1915) .