He reacted with shock and disapproval when he met contrasting behaviour in the adults around him, an attitude arising from the Puritan sensibilities of his upbringing. and "one who loved men in the aggregate but who strongly disapproved of them as individuals."

Early adolescence

Apprenticeship

As he grew up, Fox's relatives "thought to have made me a priest" (of the state Church of England) but he was instead apprenticed to a local shoemaker and grazier, George Gee of nearby Mancetter. As William Penn noted after his death, "he took most delight in sheep, so he was very skilful in them; an employment that very well suited his mind in several respects, both for its innocency and solitude; and was a just figure of his after ministry and service." Toward the end of his life he wrote a letter for general circulation pointing out that Abel, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Moses and David were all keepers of sheep or cattle and so a learned education should not be seen as a necessary qualification for ministry.

thumb|left|Medieval parish church of St Michael and All Angels, Fenny Drayton, where Fox was baptised and worshiped growing up.

In his dealings with others during his apprenticeship, he gives the impression of an earnest, reserved, scrupulously honest, kind, and resolute character. Of his honesty and resoluteness he recalls that he was so fond of the Biblically pregnant word verily that "it was a common saying among people that knew me, 'if George says 'Verily' there is no altering him.'" He also recalls times of bullying and mockery from other less sensitive youths, but that "I never wronged man or woman in all that time" and that "people had generally a love to me for my innocency and honesty." The exact nature of his difficulties is unclear, veiled by terms such as "condition," "sorrow," "exercises," "great darkness," and "trouble of mind" as well as conventional sentiments of Calvinist spiritual crisis such as "tempted to sin" and "tempted to despair." Subsequent biographers have characterised it as depression brought about by adolescent malaise and the political situation. Fox came to understand it as a providential part of his formation: It was accompanied by what he called "the command of God" to embark on a solitary itinerant lifestyle as he sought a solution from various so-called religious authorities: Puritan clergy of both the established Church of England and emerging nonconformist sects. Their failure to "speak to my condition" initiated his rejection of almost all outward forms of religion, and a determination to know all religious truth only "by experiment." His discipline of silent prayer gradually brought about a change in his condition, he came to experience what he called "great openings", interior religious revelations. This crisis was played out against the backdrop of the First English Civil War (1642–1646).

thumb|upright=1.15|right|A Catalogue of the Severall Sects and Opinions in England and other Nations, a London [[broadsheet denouncing English dissenters printed in 1647, a few years after Fox first visited London and the inaugural year of his preaching mission. It depicts, among others, a Roman Catholic Jesuit, an Arminian, an Arian (probably a Socinian), a nudist Adamite, a Soul Sleeper, an Anabaptist performing credobaptism, a Familist, and one of the Seekers (Fox's own ill-defined group in his early years).]]

Initial journeying

In September 1643 Fox "left my relations, and broke off all familiarity or fellowship with young or old." He passed through predominantly parliamentarian regions, however both Roundhead and Cavalier troops were stationed in the villages and towns along his route. While at Barnet, Fox was torn by depression (perhaps from the temptations of the resort town near London). He alternately shut himself in his room for days at a time or went out alone into the countryside. He was about 20 years old at this time. This was itself a response to the official Westminster Assembly of Puritan divines, meeting just up the River Thames, in the Jerusalem Chamber at Westminster Abbey, on the orders of the Long Parliament. This group was responsible for drafting the constitutional documents for a never realised state Presbyterian Church of England - the Westminster Confession and the Directory of Public Worship, both of which were published in 1644. He returned out of concern for his parents, fearing they were anxious for his safety amid the turmoil of the Civil War. He mentions encounters with many "tender people" (i.e. those open to true religious experience) and must have witnessed firsthand the impact of the Puritan revolution that was reshaping religious life in most Parliamentarian towns across England. After this, he returned to reside at Drayton. During this time his spiritual despair deepened. The Journal speaks of deep melancholy, long bouts of solitary nocturnal walking, and a frantic search for advice. The local curate, Nathaniel Stephens, a Calvinist Presbyterian and an academic theologian in the scholastic tradition, at first did his best to minister to Fox with kindness, and they often visited one another. Stephens considered Fox a gifted young man, but the two disagreed on many issues, and he later called Fox mad and spoke against him.

thumb|left|[[Cook Street Gate today. One of the twelve gates in Coventry town walls where Fox received the first of his three initial "openings", his term for a vision or revelation.]]

After despairing of Stephens's advice, he sought the counsel of a spate of local clergymen around the Leicestershire–Warwickshire border. The "ancient" vicar of Mancetter, Richard Able, told him to take tobacco (which Fox disliked) and sing the psalms (he couldn't sing). Able soon tired of him, grew annoyed, and gossiped to his flock about what he had said. Another clergyman in Tamworth struck him as foolish. A third, Dr Cradock of Coventry, lost his temper when Fox accidentally stepped on a flower bed in his garden.

Fox's experience of dissenters in this formative period was more mixed than that of the clerics of established church. He expressed admiration for the “tenderness” of many, particularly Baptists and horror at others, specifically at Calvinist rigidity, an overemphasis on “sin and imperfection”, and at blatant scriptural unorthodoxy, notably from those who denied that women had immortal souls.

Initial "openings" and break with the Established Church

Fox's crisis of confidence came to a head in spring 1646 with his first revelations, or "openings" to use his term. They led him to withdraw from all conventional external religious activity (except Scripture reading), thus entering into schism with the Church of England. The step is presented in the Journal as three visions, revelations, realisations, or "openings":

  1. On false, merely external, discipleship and ritual among Protestants as well as Roman Catholics. Apparently received while walking up to a gate, perhaps the surviving Swanswell or Cook Street Gates, in Coventry city walls.
  2. On the superfluity of stipended clerical ministry of any kind, not just a sacramental variety. Poignantly received while walking in the fields on a Sunday morning, before or after morning service.
  3. On the superfluity of sacred buildings, which thereafter he began to call "steeple-houses".

Though central to his later message, these were symptoms of a broader conviction forming around 1646: that religion is not external because God is directly accessible without a mediator. This breakthrough is summarised, retrospectively, a few pages later in the Journal in one of his best-loved and most quoted passages: Both Fox's family and Nathaniel Stephens were alarmed by his refusal to attend church, which followed shortly after, and it occasioned considerable objection from both. In response he cited the First Epistle of John (): "The anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you."

thumb|right|[[Battle of Bosworth Field#Battlefield location|Bosworth Field viewed from Ambion Hill, the site of the Battle of Bosworth about 5 miles from Fenny Drayton. Thomas Hodgkin surmised that Fox must have frequently wandered over this spot in prayer. By the execution of William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, in January 1645, the authority of the bishops had effectively disintegrated. Later that year, in October, the Long Parliament passed the Ordinance Abolishing Archbishops and Bishops, formally removing the episcopal structure from the Church. By September 1650, Parliament repealed the Act of Uniformity, making Sunday attendance at parish churches optional. This both recognised and encouraged the existing flood of dissenting sects,

Religious Society of Friends

In 1647 Fox began to preach publicly: in market-places, fields, appointed meetings of various kinds or even sometimes in "steeple-houses" (churches) after the service. Fox said in his journal ‘and as I was walking by the steeplehouse side, in the town of Mansfield the Lord said unto me, that which people do trample upon must be thy food. And as the Lord spoke he opened it to me how that people and professors did trample upon the life, even the life of Christ was trampled upon…’ Mansfield in Nottinghamshire was a town to which George Fox lived. The steeplehouse in Mansfield was the church of St Peter and St Paul.

His powerful preaching began to attract a small following. It is not clear at what point the Society of Friends was formed, but there was certainly a group of people who often travelled together. At first, they called themselves "Children of the Light" or "Friends of the Truth", and later simply "Friends". Fox seems initially to have had no desire to found a sect, but only to proclaim what he saw as the pure and genuine principles of Christianity in their original simplicity, though he afterward showed great prowess as a religious organiser in the structure he gave to the new society.

There were a great many rival Christian denominations holding very diverse opinions in that period; the atmosphere of dispute and confusion gave Fox an opportunity to put forward his own beliefs through his personal sermons. Fox's preaching was grounded in scripture but was mainly effective because of the intense personal experience he was able to project. avoiding the Ranter's antinomian view that a believer becomes automatically sinless. By 1651 he had gathered other talented preachers around him and continued to roam the country despite a harsh reception from some listeners, who would whip and beat them to drive them away. As his reputation spread, his words were not welcomed by all. As an uncompromising preacher, he hurled disputation and contradiction to the faces of his opponents. The worship of Friends in the form of silent waiting punctuated by individuals speaking as the Spirit moved them seems to have been well-established by this time, though it is not recorded how this came to be; Richard Bauman asserts that "speaking was an important feature of the meeting for worship from the earliest days of Quakerism."

Imprisonment

Fox complained to judges about decisions he considered morally wrong, as he did in a letter on the case of a woman due to be executed for theft. He campaigned against paying the tithes intended to fund the established church, which often went into the pockets of absentee landlords or religious colleges distant from the paying parishioners. In his view, as God was everywhere and anyone could preach, the established church was unnecessary and a university qualification irrelevant for a preacher. At Derby in 1650 he was imprisoned for blasphemy; a judge mocked Fox's exhortation to "tremble at the word of the Lord", calling him and his followers "Quakers". After he refused to fight against the return of the monarchy (or to take up arms for any reason), his sentence was doubled. The refusal to swear oaths or take up arms came to be much more important in his public statements. Refusal to take oaths meant that Quakers could be prosecuted under laws compelling subjects to pledge allegiance and made testifying in court problematic. In the same year Fox felt that God led him to ascend Pendle Hill, where he had a vision of many souls coming to Christ. From there he travelled to Sedbergh, where he had heard a group of Seekers was meeting, and preached to over a thousand people on Firbank Fell, convincing many, including Francis Howgill, to accept that Christ might speak to people directly. At the end of the month he stayed at Swarthmoor Hall, near Ulverston, the home of Thomas Fell, vice-chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and his wife, Margaret. Around that time, the ad hoc meetings of Friends began to be formalised and a monthly meeting was set up in County Durham. Further imprisonments came in London in 1654, Launceston in 1656, Lancaster in 1660, Leicester in 1662, Lancaster again and Scarborough in 1664–1666 and Worcester in 1673–1675. Charges usually included causing a disturbance and travelling without a pass. Quakers fell foul of irregularly enforced laws forbidding unauthorised worship, while actions motivated by belief in social equality – refusing to use or acknowledge titles, take hats off in court or bow to those who considered themselves socially superior – were seen as disrespectful. While imprisoned at Launceston, Fox wrote, "Christ our Lord and master saith 'Swear not at all, but let your communications be yea, yea, and nay, nay, for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.' ... the Apostle James saith, 'My brethren, above all things swear not, neither by heaven, nor by earth, nor by any other oath. Lest ye fall into condemnation.'"

In prison George Fox continued writing and preaching, feeling that imprisonment brought him into contact with people who needed his help—the jailers as well as his fellow prisoners. In his journal, he told his magistrate, "God dwells not in temples made with hands." He also sought to set an example by his actions there, turning the other cheek when being beaten and refusing to show his captors any dejected feelings.

Encounters with Cromwell

thumb|right|upright|Cromwell was sympathetic to Fox and almost agreed to follow his teaching—but persecution of Quakers continued.

Parliamentarians grew suspicious of monarchist plots and fearful that the group travelling with Fox aimed to overthrow the government: by this time his meetings were regularly attracting crowds of over a thousand. In early 1655 he was arrested at Whetstone, Leicestershire and taken to London under armed guard. In March he was brought before the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell. After affirming that he had no intention of taking up arms, Fox was able to speak to Cromwell for most of the morning about the Friends. He advised him to listen to God's voice and obey it, so that as Fox left, Cromwell "with tears in his eyes said, 'Come again to my house; for if thou and I were but an hour of a day together, we should be nearer one to the other'; adding that he wished [Fox] no more ill than he did to his own soul."

This episode was later recalled as an example of "speaking truth to power", a preaching technique by which subsequent Quakers hoped to influence the powerful. Although not used until the 20th century, the phrase is related to the ideas of plain speech and simplicity which Fox practised, but motivated by the more worldly goal of eradicating war, injustice and oppression.

Fox petitioned Cromwell over the course of 1656 to alleviate the persecution of Quakers. Later that year, they met for a second time at Whitehall. On a personal level, the meeting went well; despite disagreements between the two men, they had a certain rapport. Fox invited Cromwell to "lay down his crown at the feet of Jesus" – which Cromwell declined to do. Fox met Cromwell again twice in March 1657. Their last meeting was in 1658 at Hampton Court, though they could not speak for long or meet again because of the Protector's worsening illness – Fox even wrote that "he looked like a dead man". Cromwell died in September of that year.

James Nayler

One early Quaker convert, the Yorkshireman James Nayler, arose as a prominent preacher in London around 1655. A breach began to form between Fox's and Nayler's followers. As Fox was held prisoner at Launceston, Nayler moved south-westwards towards Launceston intending to meet Fox and heal any rift. On the way he was arrested himself and held at Exeter. After Fox was released from Launceston gaol in 1656, he preached throughout the West Country. Arriving at Exeter late in September, Fox was reunited with Nayler. Nayler and his followers refused to remove their hats while Fox prayed, which Fox took as both a personal slight and a bad example. When Nayler refused to kiss Fox's hand, Fox told Nayler to kiss his foot instead. Nayler was offended and the two parted acrimoniously. Fox wrote that "there was now a wicked spirit risen amongst Friends".

After Nayler's own release later the same year he rode into Bristol triumphantly playing the part of Jesus Christ in a re-enactment of Palm Sunday. He was arrested and taken to London, where Parliament defeated a motion to execute him by a vote of 96–82. Instead, they ordered that he be pilloried and whipped through both London and Bristol, branded on his forehead with the letter B (for blasphemer), bored through the tongue with a red-hot iron and imprisoned in solitary confinement with hard labour. Nayler was released in 1659, but he was a broken man. On meeting Fox in London, he fell to his knees and begged Fox's forgiveness. Shortly afterward, Nayler was attacked by thieves while travelling home to his family, and died. Fox commissioned two Friends to travel around the country collecting the testimonies of imprisoned Quakers, as evidence of their persecution; this led to the establishment in 1675 of Meeting for Sufferings, which has continued to the present day.

The 1650s, when the Friends were at their most confrontational, was one of the most creative periods of their history. Under the Commonwealth, Fox had hoped that the movement would become the major church in England. Disagreements, persecution and increasing social turmoil, however, led Fox to suffer from severe depression, which left him deeply troubled at Reading, Berkshire, for ten weeks in 1658 or 1659. In 1659, he sent parliament his most politically radical pamphlet, Fifty nine Particulars laid down for the Regulating things, but the year was so chaotic that it never considered these; the document was not reprinted until the 21st century. In the aftermath of this attempted coup, Fox and eleven other Quakers issued a broadside proclaiming what became known among Friends in the 20th century as the "peace testimony", committing themselves to oppose all outward wars and strife as contrary to the will of God. Not all his followers accepted this commitment; Isaac Penington, for example, dissented for a time, arguing that the state had a duty to protect the innocent from evil, if necessary by using military force. Despite the testimony, persecution against Quakers and other dissenters continued. Fox was able to meet some of the New England Friends when they came to London, stimulating his interest in the colonies. Fox was unable to travel there immediately: he was imprisoned again in 1664 for his refusal to swear the oath of allegiance, and on his release in 1666 was preoccupied with organizational matters – he normalised the system of monthly and quarterly meetings throughout the country, and extended it to Ireland.

Visiting Ireland also gave him a chance to preach against what he saw as the excesses of the Roman Catholic Church, in particular the use of ritual. More recent Quaker commentators have noted points of contact between the denominations: both claim the actual presence of God in their meetings, and both allow the collective opinion of the church to augment Biblical teaching. Fox, however, did not perceive this, brought up as he had been in a wholly Protestant environment hostile to "Popery".

Fox married Margaret Fell of Swarthmoor Hall, a lady of high social position and one of his early converts, on 27 October 1669 at a meeting in Bristol. She was ten years his senior and had eight children (all but one of them Quakers) by her first husband, Thomas Fell, who had died in 1658. She was herself very active in the movement, and had campaigned for equality and the acceptance of women as preachers. As there were no priests at Quaker weddings to perform the ceremony, the union took the form of a civil marriage approved by the principals and the witnesses at a meeting. Ten days after the marriage, Margaret returned to Swarthmoor to continue her work there, while George went back to London. Their shared religious work was at the heart of their life together, and they later collaborated on much of the administration the Society required. Shortly after the marriage, Margaret was imprisoned in Lancaster; George remained in the south-east of England, becoming so ill and depressed that for a time he lost his sight.

Travels in North America and Europe

225px|right|thumb|This stone in [[Flushing, Queens|Flushing, New York, located across from the John Bowne House commemorates the place where George Fox preached a sermon on 7 June 1672.]]

By 1671 Fox had recovered and Margaret had been released by order of the King. Fox resolved to visit the English settlements in North America and the West Indies, remaining there for two years, possibly to counter any remnants of Perrot's teaching there. From there, Fox sent an epistle to Friends spelling out the role of women's meetings in the Quaker marriage ceremony, a point of controversy when he returned home. One of his proposals suggested that the prospective couple should be interviewed by an all-female meeting prior to the marriage to determine whether there were any financial or other impediments. Though women's meetings had been held in London for the last ten years, this was an innovation in Bristol and the north-west of England, which many there felt went too far. He resented the suggestion (from a man in North Carolina) that "the Light and Spirit of God ... was not in the Indians", a proposition which Fox rejected. Fox left no record of encountering slaves on the mainland.

Elsewhere in the colonies, Fox helped to establish organizational systems for the Friends, along the same lines as he had done in Britain. He also preached to many non-Quakers, some but not all of whom were converted.

thumb|right|Fox established a Yearly Meeting in [[Amsterdam for Friends in the Netherlands and German states.]]

After extensive travels round the various American colonies, George Fox returned to England in June 1673 confident that his movement was firmly established there. Back in England, however, he found his movement sharply divided among provincial Friends (such as William Rogers, John Wilkinson and John Story) who resisted establishment of women's meetings and the power of those who resided in or near London. With William Penn and Robert Barclay as allies of Fox, the challenge to Fox's leadership was eventually put down. His mother died shortly after hearing of his arrest and Fox's health began to suffer. Margaret Fell petitioned the king for his release, which was granted, but Fox felt too weak to take up his travels immediately. Recuperating at Swarthmoor, he began dictating what would be published after his death as his journal and devoted his time to his written output: letters, both public and private, as well as books and essays. Much of his energy was devoted to the topic of oaths, having become convinced of its importance to Quaker ideas. By refusing to swear, he felt that he could bear witness to the value of truth in everyday life, as well as to God, whom he associated with truth and the inner light.

For three months in 1677 and a month in 1684, Fox visited the Friends in the Netherlands, and organised their meetings for discipline. The first trip was the more extensive, taking him into what is now Germany, proceeding along the coast to Friedrichstadt and back again over several days. Meanwhile, Fox was participating in a dispute among Friends in Britain over the role of women in meetings, a struggle which took much of his energy and left him exhausted. Returning to England, he stayed in the south to try to end the dispute. He followed with interest the foundation of the colony of Pennsylvania, where Penn had given him over of land.]]

In the last years of his life, Fox continued to participate in the London Meetings, and still made representations to Parliament about the sufferings of Friends. The new King, James II, pardoned religious dissenters jailed for failure to attend the established church, leading to the release of about 1,500 Friends. Though the Quakers lost influence after the Glorious Revolution, which deposed James II, the Act of Toleration 1689 put an end to the uniformity laws under which Quakers had been persecuted, permitting them to assemble freely.

Two days after preaching as usual at the Gracechurch Street Meeting House in London, George Fox died between 9 and 10 p.m. on 13 January 1690 O.S. (23 January 1691 N.S.). He was interred three days later in the Quaker Burying Ground, in the presence of thousands of mourners.

Works

Book of Miracles

George Fox performed hundreds of healings throughout his preaching ministry, the records of which were collected in a notable but now lost book titled Book of Miracles. This book was listed in the catalogue of George Fox's work maintained by the Library of the Society of Friends at Friends House, London. In 1932, Henry Cadbury found a reference to Book of Miracles in the catalogue, which included the beginning and ending of each account of a miraculous cure. The book was then reconstructed based on this resource and journal accounts. According to Rufus M. Jones, the Book of Miracles "makes it possible for us to follow George Fox as he went about his seventeenth-century world, not only preaching his fresh messages of life and power, but as a remarkable healer of disease with the undoubted reputation of miracle-worker." The Book of Miracles was deliberately suppressed in favour of printing Fox's Journal and other writings.

A sample from Book of Miracles: "And a young woman her mother ... had made her well. And another young woman was ... small pox ... of God was made well."

Journal

Fox's journal was first published in 1694, after editing by Thomas Ellwood – a friend and associate of John Milton – with a preface by William Penn. Like most similar works of its time the journal was not written contemporaneously to the events it describes, but rather compiled many years later, much of it dictated. Parts of the journal were not in fact by Fox at all, but constructed by its editors from diverse sources and written as if by him. The dissent within the movement and the contributions of others to the development of Quakerism are largely excluded from the narrative. Fox portrays himself as always in the right and always vindicated by God's interventions on his behalf. A notable edition was published in 1852 by Quaker abolitionist Wilson Armistead annotated with historical and biographical footnotes which, according to Armistead, "must materially increase its interest". Others point out that "Fox's sermons, rich in biblical metaphor and common speech, brought hope in a dark time." Fox's aphorisms found an audience beyond the Quakers, with many other church groups using them to illustrate principles of Christianity.

Fox is described by Ellwood as "graceful in countenance, manly in personage, grave in gesture, courteous in conversation". Penn says he was "civil beyond all forms of breeding". We are told that he was "plain and powerful in preaching, fervent in prayer", "a discerner of other men's spirits, and very much master of his own", skilful to "speak a word in due season to the conditions and capacities of most, especially to them that were weary, and wanted soul's rest"; "valiant in asserting the truth, bold in defending it, patient in suffering for it, immovable as a rock".

Legacy

Fox had a tremendous influence on the Society of Friends and his beliefs have largely been carried forward. Perhaps his most significant achievement, other than his predominant influence in the early movement, was his leadership in overcoming the twin challenges of government prosecution after the Restoration and internal disputes that threatened its stability during the same period. Not all of his beliefs were welcome to all Quakers: his Puritan-like opposition to the arts and rejection of theological study, forestalled development of these practices among Quakers for some time. The George Fox room at Friends House, London, UK is named after him.

Walt Whitman, who was raised by parents inspired by Quaker principles, later wrote: "George Fox stands for something too – a thought – the thought that wakes in silent hours – perhaps the deepest, most eternal thought latent in the human soul. This is the thought of God, merged in the thoughts of moral right and the immortality of identity. Great, great is this thought – aye, greater than all else."

Fox is remembered in the Church of England with a commemoration on 13 January.

A building is named after him at Lancaster University, currently part of Fylde College.

See also

  • Christian anarchism
  • Christian mysticism
  • George Fox University
  • List of abolitionist forerunners
  • List of people on the postage stamps of Ireland
  • Lewis Benson, Fox historian

References

Citations

Primary sources

Various editions of Fox's journal have been published since the first printing in 1694:

  • Jones, Rufus M. (editor). 1908. George Fox – An Autobiography, an annotated and slightly abridged text, is also available in print (e. g. Friends United Press, 2006; ) and online ([http://www.ccel.org/ccel/fox_g/autobio.html] [http://www.strecorsoc.org/gfox/notes.html] [https://web.archive.org/web/20160303231932/http://jesus.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/documents/books/others/fox_autobiog.pdf] [https://archive.org/stream/cu31924029465535#page/n7/mode/2up]).
  • Nickalls, John L. (editor). 1952. The Journal of George Fox. Cambridge University Press. (Reprinted by the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting; )
  • Ross, Hugh McGregor (editor). 2008. George Fox: A Christian Mystic. Cathair na Mart: Evertype.

Secondary sources

  • Barclay, Robert (1678), An Apology for the True Christian Divinity. A systematic treatment of Quaker theology at the end of the seventeenth century; available online.
  • Bauman, Richard (1983), Let your words be few. (Cambridge: CUP). A survey of the role of words, language, silence and symbolism among seventeenth century Quakers.
  • Emerson, Wildes Harry (1965), Voice of the Lord: A Biography of George Fox (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press).
  • Ingle, H. Larry (1994, reprinted 1996), First Among Friends: George Fox and the Creation of Quakerism (Oxford University Press; ). First scholarly biography showing how Fox used his influence in the Society of Friends to ensure conformity to his views and survival of the group.
  • Ingle, H. Larry (2004), "Fox, George (1624–1691)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press). Retrieved 13 May 2008. (Subscription required)
  • Marsh, Josiah (1847), A Popular Life of George Fox (London: Charles Gilpin). Somewhat biased but thorough biography of Fox.
  • Mullett, Michael A. (1994), New Light on George Fox, 1624–91: A Collection of Essays (York: Ebor Press/Hyperion Books) (). Collection of essays.
  • Quaker Faith and Practice, Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain. ( [1999 revision]). Shows a modern Quaker view of Fox and much historical information about Friends and their institutions.
  • The life's work of George Fox – Ward's Book of Days
  • The Writings and Life of George Fox. The Journal and the Epistles, edited and with commentary by Hall Worthington and Joan Worthington
  • The Lamb's Officer is Gone Forth with the Lamb's Message by George Fox at the Ex-Classics Web Site
  • House of Commons Journal Volume 8, 21 May 1660, see entry under Geo. Fox, &c., Order by the House that George Fox & Rob. Gressingham who "made a great Disturbance at Harwich" and are to be handed over to the Serjeant-at-Arms.