John Fox (biographer)

John Fox (10 May 1693 – 25 October 1763) 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 II. In May 1708 he entered the academy, where he soon quarrelled with Harding, and formed an intimacy with his tutor's son, Joseph Hallet III, 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 (1712–13), 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.

In October 1714 Fox went to London, where he remained till April 1716. He lodged with four young ministers in Austin Friars; it is probable that he attended the classes of John Eames He became intimate with Secker and Samuel Chandler (who lived in Calamy's house); to both of whom, and especially to Secker (who kept up a correspondence with him till 1718), he ascribes his progress in freedom of opinion. His father wished him to be licensed as a preacher before he returned to Plymouth. This implied an examination, from which he shrank. After interviews with Williams and Calamy, he abandoned the idea of passing his trials in London. His friend Jeremy Burroughs (a young minister who afterwards became collector of the customs at Bristol) came to his relief, by advising him simply to take the oath of allegiance, as if he had been licensed. He chose a time when, in consequence of the rebellion of 1745, all ministers were ordered to take the oath afresh. As he was signing his name in the court of exchequer with the rest, Calamy ‘looked very hard at’ his rather advanced pupil.

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