Joseph Fox the elder

Joseph Fox
Portrait of Joseph at the Dept. of History of Art in the University of Manchester On the back of the canvas is printed: Joseph Fox, Surgeon, Falmouth. Drawn Aug. 1767, age 37. 22 × 12 inches
Born	1729 (1729) Par, Cornwall
Died	1785 (1786) (aged 56) Falmouth, Cornwall
Occupation	English medical doctor and Quaker

Joseph Fox (Par, Cornwall 1729 – Falmouth, Cornwall, 25 Feb 1785) was an English surgeon in Falmouth. He was the first Falmouth Fox, and founder of a medical dynasty. From him doctors have descended in the male line for (so far) seven generations.

His father, George Fox of Par, had two small vessels trading with Bilbao in Northern Spain; his brother George Croker Fox founded the firm of G. C. Fox and Co., shipping agents at Falmouth. Joseph was apprenticed to a local doctor at Fowey. When this training was over, he set up as a surgeon and apothecary at Lostwithiel, and he moved to Falmouth. He married a daughter of Richard Hingston, surgeon or apothecary at Penryn. The girl he married, in 1754, was a daughter of Richard Hingston (1695–1748), who had been a surgeon–apothecary in Penryn. In 1776 Joseph took a small house in Poran Hill for harbouring sick seaman and other poor patients.

In or before 1775 Fox took a quarter share in two cutters of the type used by the Revenue; and when war with France broke out in 1778 the other proprietors decided to equip them as privateers for capturing French merchantmen. Fox opposed this plan, since taking prize money was contrary to his Quaker beliefs. He therefore proposed that his partners should buy him out at a low price; but they refused.

Joseph Fox (Par, Cornwall, 1729, – Falmouth, Cornwall, 25 Feb 1785) son of George Fox and Anna Debell, married Penryn, 17 Apr 1754 – Elisabeth Hingston (Penryn, Cornwall, 28 Oct 1733 – Falmouth, 15 Dec 1792) daughter of Richard Hingston and Elizabeth Steele