John Fox

Who was John Fox?

John Fox was an English biographer.

Fox was born at Plymouth. His father, a zealous presbyterian, ‘devoted’ him ‘to the ministry, from an infant.’ His mother was the daughter of a Plymouth tradesman named Brett. After an education at Tavistock Grammar School, and under ‘old Mr. Bedford’ at Plymouth, he read the Greek Testament and Virgil for a few months with Nicodemus Harding, son of Nathaniel Harding, independent minister at Plymouth. The two young men were preparing for entrance at the Exeter academy, under Joseph Hallet. In May 1708 he entered the academy, where he soon quarrelled with Harding, and formed an intimacy with his tutor's son, Joseph Hallet, who put doubts into his mind respecting the Trinity.

When he left the academy in 1711 he had ‘no great disposition of being a minister.’ His reluctance to comply with the Toleration Act, by subscribing the doctrinal articles, produced a coolness with his father. After some months, Isaac Gilling, minister at Newton Abbot, Devonshire, came to Plymouth in disguise; a process was out against him for illegally keeping a Latin school. He was a first cousin of the elder Fox, who allowed his son to accompany Gilling on his flight from Devonshire, on a promise that Gilling would do all in his power to remove young Fox's aversion to the ministry. At Salisbury Fox was introduced to Sir Peter King, then recorder of London, an old friend of Gilling. Arrived in London, he slipped out of Gilling's hands, and stayed with another relative. He was not favourably impressed with John Shower, the only London minister he met, and spent his time in getting glimpses of great people and visiting the theatres. At the end of a fortnight in town, Gilling was able to return to Newton Abbot, and took Fox with him. The accidental sight of a letter from his father to Gilling ‘determined [him] to be a minister at all events.’ With this view he remained with Gilling three-quarters of a year, the pleasantest part of his life. Gilling directed his studies, and he fell in love with Gilling's daughter. In May 1713 Edmund Calamy, D.D., visited the west of England, and, hearing of Fox's scruples, made him easy by telling him confidentially that he himself had never subscribed, and that if Fox ‘kept himself to himself’ the omission would never be suspected.