19/01/2012

William Fox

It is probably Fox's father who signed the Bourton covenant of 1720. We also read in a Baptist Encylcopedia this entry:
FOX, WILLIAM (1736–1826) Baptist businessman and humanitarian, born at Clapton, England. Fox was apprenticed a draper and mercer and operated his own successful business at an early age. He was a member of Benjamin Beddome’s congregation at Bourton-on-Water but later moved to London. He became a deacon at Prescott Street Church in London under the ministry of Abraham Booth and engaged in numerous humanitarian efforts, including feeding and clothing the hungry. In May 1785, at the King’s Head Tavern in the Poultry, London, he introduced a plan for universal education that reached the attention of a number of important thinkers, including Robert Raikes (1735–1811). In collaboration with Raikes, Fox began in 1785 the Society for the Establishment and Support of Sunday Schools throughout the Kingdom of Great Britain, which aimed to teach children to read the Bible and fulfilled Fox’s dream of universal education. He was treasurer of the Baptist Home Mission Society and a friend of political leaders Granville Sharp (1735–1813) and William Wilberforce (1759-1833).

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