Francis Fox of St Germans was the progenitor of a vast clan of people called "Fox", notable in many fields of enterprise, science and the arts. He was an early convert to the Quaker faith, to which many of later generations were also true.
Contents
Origins
Burke, in his History of the commoners, states "that the numerous families of Fox at present residing in the West of England sprang from one common ancestor, a Francis Fox, who married 1646, Dorothy Kekewich." Tradition represents him to have come from Wiltshire (it is said from the parish of Farley or that of Pitton), somewhere in 1645, during the commotions of the civil war. He is stated to have been descended from the same family as the celebrated Sir Stephen Fox, ancestor of the Earls of Ilchester and the Lords Holland. It is likewise handed down that he was one of seven or eight sons, and that others of the same family also came into Devonshire and Cornwall, settling at Plymouth and Looe, but left no sons who survived.
Settling down
After marrying in 1646 he lived at Catchfrench, a 16th-century manor house belonging to the Kekewiches. Catchfrench is about three miles (5 km) from St Germans, where Francis was a clothier. It is about the same distance from Menheniot, where George Fox held his first Cornish meetings. George Fox brought the Quaker message to Cornwall in 1655 and it was then or a little later that Francis and his family joined the Society of Friends. His son, also Francis, married Tabitha Croker in 1686. They had three sons and four daughters. Their progeny settled and were successful in business and the professions in Wadebridge, Wellington and Brislington in Somerset, Exeter, Plymouth and Kingsbridge in Devon.
Children of first marriage of George Fox of Par to Mary Bealing Edward Fox (born 1719) of Wadebridge, married Anna Were (1719–1788). They had nine children, including
Children of George Fox of Par's second marriage to Anna Debell
The Falmouth Foxes are descended from two grandsons of Francis and Tabitha Fox: George Croker Fox (1727/8-1781) and Joseph Fox (1729–1784). George's descendants became prosperous merchants and were influential in the development of education, the arts and sciences in the town. Two of their number wrote fascinating journals, during the 19th century which were published in the 1970s. Joseph and many of his descendants were physicians.
Thomas Fox, homespun Quaker
The Wellington Fox family is descended from Francis Fox by way of Edward Fox of Wadebridge. He was married to Anna Were, whose family had long been established as textile manufacturers in Wellington in the county of Somerset. Their son, Thomas (17 January 1747–29 April 1821) became a partner in the firm and married Sarah Smith, the daughter of Thomas Smith, a London banker. They had 15 children, of whom seven sons and three daughters survived to adulthood. Thomas and Sarah, built in 1801, then lived in, Tone Dale House, Wellington - the house is still lived in by a Fox, five generations later, by Ben and Victoria Fox. Thomas Fox started a bank in Wellington which rapidly expanded and ran successfully, until it merged with Lloyds Bank in 1927.
The sons who participated in the family business were Thomas (1786–1862), Edward (1789–1845), Sylvanus (1791–1851), Samuel (1794–1874), Henry (1800–1876), Charles (1801–1860).
The House and the Mill
The Wellington Foxes built a large textile mill and a grand house at Tone Dale House, Wellington, Somerset (which is now part of the Big House Co). The mill is currently being converted into residential apartments. The brochure says: "The 12.6 acre former woollen textile mill complex is a brownfield site featuring a range of Grade II and Grade II* listed buildings. Established in 1790 by the Fox family, Tonedale Mill was the largest integrated mill in the South West, producing woollen and worsted fabrics. It became a site of national importance during the Boer War when the Tonedale dyers developed the ‘khaki’ dye - given the royal seal of approval by the then Prince of Wales in 1900 – which led to the end of British soldiers’ ‘redcoats’.
At its peak, Tonedale Mill employed some 4,500 people and exported fabrics around the world. It also provided livelihoods for other related trades on the site, including bookbinders, basket weavers, stonemasons and metalworkers. From the 1950s, manufacturing at Britain’s mills went into decline. The deafening noise of the powerlooms housed in Tonedale’s weaving sheds was heard no more once production on the site ceased by the end of the 1990s, although the firm of Fox Brothers and Company Ltd still exists and operates in a nearby location to this day. The history of the family was documented by Charles Henry Fox in Chronicles Of Tonedale: Two Centuries Of Family History (1879).
Part of the mill complex is still open today - the Coldharbour Mill museum in Uffculme, which supplier worsted yarn for the weaving looms of Wellington.