Fox George

Fox, George (1624-1690), the founder of the sect of Friends, was born at Drayton in Leicestershire. In his youth he tended sheep, and the solitary nature of his life gave him a great tendency towards meditation. It was at the age of nineteen that he felt a Divine call to give up all for religion, and in 1648 he began to preach in Manchester and the neighbourhood; but it was in Derby that the derisive name of Quakers was bestowed on his followers, though the Society was not formed till 1666. Fox met with much persecution at the hands of local authorities. In 1665 he was confined in Scarborough Castle, and he tells us how, in one of the rooms facing the sea, "the wind drove in the rain forcibly, so that water came over his head and ran about the room, so that he was fain to skim it up with a platter." His travels and labours and imprisonments broke his health in his latter years. He travelled in Wales, Scotland, Barbadoes, Jamaica, Holland, and Germany, and recorded his experiences in his Journal. He wrote (besides the Journal) Epistles, and Doctrinal Pieces.