Anna Maria Fox

Anna Maria Fox (21 February 1816 – 18 November 1897) was a promoter of the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society and the artistic and cultural development of Falmouth in Cornwall, UK.

Anna Maria Fox was the eldest child of Robert Were Fox FRS (26 April 1789 – 25 July 1877) and Maria Barclay (1785–1858), his wife.

Her father was a member of the Quaker Fox family of Falmouth and her mother of the Quaker Barclay family of Bury Hill, near Dorking. Her maternal grandmother was a first cousin of Elizabeth Fry.

Her siblings were Barclay Fox (6 September 1817 – 10 March 1855) and Caroline Fox (24 May 1819 – 12 January 1871). The family lived at Rosehill and Penjerrick

She never married. With her sister, Caroline, she raised the four sons of her brother, Barclay, after the death of their parents.

Anna Maria outlived her sister by sixteen years, which Thomas Hodgkin described as a "widowhood". She died, aged 81 on 18 November 1897 and was buried at the Quaker Burial Ground in Budock, in the same plot as her sister, Caroline

In their teenage years, Robert Were Fox challenged his children to keep journals, offering a guinea reward for the first year completed. All three kept journals for many years.

Anna Maria commissioned a relative by marriage, Horace Pym, to edit and publish her sister's journal. The book Memories of old friends was published by Smith, Elder & Co. ten years after Caroline Fox's death. It sold well. Before her death, Anna Maria arranged for all the original volumes of Caroline's journals to be burnt. A further selection from Memories of old friends, edited by Wendy Monk, was published in 1972.

Barclay Fox's journal, edited by Raymond Brett, was published in 1979.

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