Barclay Fox

Robert Barclay Fox (6 September 1817 – 10 March 1855) was a businessman, gardener and diarist, a member of the influential Quaker Fox family of Falmouth.

Barclay Fox was the son of Robert Were Fox F.R.S. of Falmouth in Cornwall and Maria (born Barclay of Bury Hill, Surrey), his wife. He was the brother of Anna Maria and Caroline Fox and brother-in law of Edmund Backhouse, M.P. for Darlington, who married the Barclay's cousin, Juliet.

Barclay's courtship of Jane Gurney Backhouse is described in his Journal, published in 1979. The 1979 edition of Barclay's journal runs from 1832 to 1854, with most of the entries dating from before his marriage to Jane, in October 1844, and the birth of their five children: four boys and a girl. In September 2008 a new edition was published with additional journal entries from 1845 to 1854.

A notable diary entry of 26 December 1842 relates one of the earliest English examples of Father Christmas acting as gift-giver: "the venerable effigies of Father Christmas with scarlet coat & cocked hat, stuck all over with presents for the guests, by his side the old year, a most dismal & haggard old beldame in a night cap and spectacles, then 1843 [the new year], a promising baby asleep in a cradle".

Barclay and his siblings played a large part in the naming and establishment of the Cornwall Polytechnic Society (from 1835, the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society). After his death, the RCPS Committee recorded

"The Society, however, since our last meeting, has been deprived of the services of Mr. R. B. Fox, who, on all occasions, not only aided the institution by his varied and powerful intelligence but practically and laboriously assisted in carrying it on".

In his diary for 1843, Barclay gives an entertaining account of his travels in France and Italy.

Before he left for the continent, on 6 February 1843, his family made him a partner in the firm of G.C. Fox (Shipping Brokers). Barclay was also general manager of the Iron Foundry at Perranarworthal from 18 July 1842, when his uncle, Charles Fox, retired.

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