FOX, WILLIAM JOHNSON

FOX, WILLIAM JOHNSON, orator and political writer, was born in 1786 near Southwold, Suffolk, the son of a small farmer, who afterwards settled as a weaver at Norwich. Sent to Homerton College to be trained for the Independent ministry, he subsequently seceded to Unitarianism, and ultimately delivered a series of prelections at his chapel in South Place, Finsbury, which marked him out as the leader of English rationalism. When the Anti-corn-law League enlisted the ablest platform orators of the day in the service of free trade, his bold and impassioned rhetoric greatly contributed to arouse and intensify public feeling. M. Guizot quotes his speeches as the most finished examples of oratory which the great conflict produced. Their effect upon the vast metropolitan audiences to which they were addressed was electric. Fox also contributed by his pen to the success of free trade, and his Letters of a Norwich Weaver Boy were largely quoted and read. From 1847 till 1863 he sat as an advanced Liberal for Oldham in parliament, where his success was hardly equal to the oratorical promise of his platform and pulpit career. His best parliamentary speeches were upon the education of the people. One of the earliest contributors to the Westminster Review, he edited for many years the Monthly Repository, and published many lectures, &c., col- lected in the Memorial Edition of his works (12 vols. 1865-68). He died 3d June 1864.