George Fox

George Fox was born in 1624 at Drayton-in-the-Clay, Leicestershire, the son of a weaver, and was apprenticed to a shoemaker. Troubled in spirit, he left home in 1643 and wandered for several years seeking counsel from clergy, finding none who satisfied him, until he became convinced that Christ himself could speak directly to the soul. From 1647 he preached that the light of Christ is within every person, rejected paid clergy, oaths and steeple-houses, and refused to remove his hat before social superiors. In 1652 at Pendle Hill and Firbank Fell in the north of England he gathered many followers, who came to be called Quakers and the Children of the Light. He was imprisoned eight times, including at Derby, Launceston, Lancaster and Scarborough. In 1669 he married Margaret Fell, a leading early Friend. He travelled to Ireland, the West Indies, the American colonies and the Netherlands, organized the Society's meetings, and dictated a Journal published in 1694. He died in London in 1691. He endured repeated imprisonment rather than abandon his preaching.

George Fox is also an author in the library: author page and works.

Faith: Founder of the Society of Friends, whose followers were first called Quakers in 1650. Source: Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography (via Wikisource)

See also: William Penn