Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 20.djvu/142

 Holland [q. v.]; a daughter, Christian, twin with Henry (d. 1708); and another daughter, Charlotte, married in July 1729 to Edward, third son of William, fifth lord Digby. The second Lady Fox dying at Bath, 17 Feb. 1718–1719, was buried at Farley. In the picture at Holland House Sir Godfrey Kneller endows her ‘with small and pretty features, and hair and complexion as dark as her grandson's.’

Fox's reputation for courtesy, kindliness of disposition, and generosity has been amply confirmed by Evelyn. Pepys, too, has much to say in commendation of the paymaster, who confided to him the secrets whereby he was enabled to make such large profits (Diary, ed. Bright, iv. 206). He does not forget to celebrate the ‘very genteel’ dinners of his host, while Lady Fox and her seven children noted for their comeliness received unstinted praise, ‘a family governed so nobly and neatly as do me good to see it’ (ib. v. 335). Fox's portrait by Lely has been engraved by Scriven; of that by J. Baker there are engravings by Simon, Earlom, and Harding (, Cat. of Engraved Portraits, ii. 158). A large mass of his official papers and correspondence is preserved in the Additional Manuscripts in the British Museum.

[Memoirs of the Life of Sir Stephen Fox, kt. 8vo, London, 1717 (reprinted fol. London, 1807, and 8vo, London, 1811); Richard Eyre's Sermon preach'd at the Funeral of Sir Stephen Fox, kt. 8vo, London, 1716; Richard Eyre's Sermon preach'd at the Funeral of Charles Fox, esq., 4to, Oxford, 1713; Historical Register, 1716, i. 546–7; Trevelyan's Early Hist. of C. J. Fox, ch. i.; Collins's Peerage (Brydges), iii. 260, iv. 529, v. 382; Le Neve's Pedigrees of the Knights (Harl. Soc.), p. 197; Cal. State Papers (Dom. Ser.); Evelyn's Diary (1850–2); Pepys's Diary (Bright); Luttrell's Relation of State Affairs (1857); Noble's Continuation of Granger's Biog. Hist. i. 150–1; Chester's London Marriage Licences (Foster), col. 508; Chester's Westminster Abbey Registers; Lysons's Environs, ii. 155, 208–10; Hoare's Wiltshire, Hundred of Alderbury, sub ‘Farley;’ Notes and Queries, 1st ser. ix. 271, xi. 325, 395, 2nd ser. i. 301, 410, ix. 419, 5th ser. iii. 416, iv. 114; Memorials and Correspondence of C. J. Fox (Russell), vol. i. bk. i.; Earl Russell's Life and Times of C. J. Fox, vol. i. ch. i.; Will of Sir Stephen Fox (P. C. C. 133, Fox); Will of Sackvill Whittle (P. C. C. 52, North); Cal. Clarendon State Papers; Cal. State Papers, Treas., 1692–1719.] 

FOX, TIMOTHY (1628–1710), nonconformist divine, was born in 1628, and educated at Birmingham, whence he proceeded to Christ's College, Cambridge. He was admitted by the commissioners of the great seal to the rectory of Drayton, Staffordshire, but on being ejected by the Bartholomew act of 1662 he settled for a while in a neighbouring town, where he made a shift to live by his pen and the help of relations, till the Oxford act forced him to remove, and rent a farm in Derbyshire. Afterwards, in May 1684, he was committed to Derby gaol upon that act, not for any exercise of religion, but merely for coming to see his son, then an apprentice in that town, and remained a prisoner until the following November. He again suffered imprisonment when Monmouth was in the west, on this occasion in Chester gaol. No cause whatever was assigned for his detention. After enduring a month's confinement he was released on finding ample security for his good behaviour. From the time of his ejectment he preached in private as he had opportunity, and after public liberty was granted, he opened a meeting in his own house at Caldwell, Derbyshire, where he preached twice a day and catechised. He died in May 1710.

[Calamy's Nonconf. Memorial, ed. Palmer, 1802, iii. 232–3.] 

FOX, WILLIAM (1736–1826), founder of the Sunday School Society, son of J. Fox, renter of the Clapton Manor estate, Gloucestershire, was born at Clapton 14 Feb. 1736. The youngest of a large family he was left fatherless in early childhood. He had extraordinary resolution, and at the age of ten formed business plans which were afterwards completely realised. He ultimately became lord of the manor of Clapton. Fox was apprenticed to a draper and mercer at Oxford in 1752, and before the expiration of his indentures his master gave up to him his house and shop and stock of goods, valued at about 4,000l. Fox married in 1761 the eldest daughter of Jonathan Tabor, a Colchester merchant. Three years later he removed to London, and entered upon a large business in Leadenhall Street. Impressed with the degradation of the poorer classes of the population, he endeavoured unsuccessfully, by the aid of members of both houses of parliament, to move the government in their behalf. About 1784, when he became the proprietor of Clapton, he began his humanitarian work unaided, not only clothing all the poor of the parish—men, women, and children—but founding a free day school. Writing to Robert Raikes in 1785 he stated that long before the establishment of Sunday schools he had designed a system of universal education, but had met with little support from the clergy and laity, who were alarmed by the magnitude of the undertaking. A meeting was held at Fox's instance in the Poultry, London, on 16 Aug. 1785, when it was