Memoir of George Fox
George Fox was a weaver's apprentice from Drayton-in-the-Clay who walked out of his trade at nineteen because no priest and no professor could speak to his condition. What he found instead — that there is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition — became the seed of the Religious Society of Friends. This memoir follows him from that first opening to the end: the vision on Pendle Hill of a great people to be gathered, the convincement of Swarthmoor and the whole north country, and then the price. Eight imprisonments. Derby, where the justice called him a Quaker and the name stuck. Launceston, and the pit at Doomsdale that no man would clean. Lancaster and Scarborough Castle. Worcester, and the long fight over the oath he would not swear. He carried the peace testimony to Charles the Second's officers in 1660 and never moved from it. He crossed to Barbadoes, Jamaica, Maryland, New England and the Carolinas, travelling by open boat and Indian guide. He went into Holland and Germany. He built the meeting structure that outlived him — monthly, quarterly and yearly meetings, records, marriages, poor relief — and he held it together through the separations that tried to pull it apart. He died at Gracechurch Street in London on the thirteenth of the eleventh month, 1690, two days after preaching. This edition presents the memoir in clear modern English, with the testimonies of William Penn and Thomas Ellwood concerning him.
- Fully modernized English — every long sentence broken, every inversion untangled
- 1,670-word editorial introduction placing his life against the English Civil War and the Restoration
- 30 chapters with argument summaries, plus a full linked table of contents
- Pendle Hill, Swarthmoor, Derby, Launceston, Lancaster, Worcester — the whole arc of convincement and suffering
- The 1660 peace testimony, the American voyage, and the building of the meeting structure
- 401 linked Scripture and reference notes throughout
- EPUB format
About This Edition
George Fox was born at Drayton-in-the-Clay in Leicestershire in July 1624, the son of a weaver the neighbours called Righteous Christer. He was apprenticed to a shoemaker who also kept sheep, and he was good at it. At nineteen he walked away.
The seeking years
What drove him out was not doubt but disgust — two professing men at a fair pressing him to drink healths with them, and the ordinary distance between what people said they believed and how they lived. He went to the priests. He went to the separate preachers. One told him to take tobacco and sing psalms; another set him to bleed. None of them could speak to his condition. Then, when all his hopes in men were gone, he heard a voice which said, There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition — and his heart leapt for joy.
Pendle Hill and the gathering
In 1652 he was moved to go up Pendle Hill, and from the top he saw in vision a great people to be gathered. Within weeks he was at Firbank Chapel preaching to a thousand Seekers, and then at Swarthmoor, where Margaret Fell was convinced and Judge Fell let the meeting be held in his house. The north country came in by whole meetings.
Eight imprisonments
The price is set out plainly here. Derby, 1650, where Justice Bennet called him a Quaker because he bade the bench tremble at the word of the Lord, and the name stuck. Carlisle, in a filthy dungeon among the moss-troopers. Launceston, and the pit called Doomsdale that had not been cleaned in years. Lancaster and Scarborough Castle, held on the oath of allegiance he would not swear — not from disloyalty, but because Christ had said swear not at all. Worcester, and the years of legal fight that followed.
The peace testimony, and the wider world
In 1660 he and eleven other Friends gave the declaration to Charles the Second that Friends would not take up carnal weapons for any end whatever, and he never moved from it. He crossed the Atlantic and travelled Barbadoes, Jamaica, Maryland, New England and the Carolinas, much of it by open boat and Indian guide through country with no roads. He went into Holland and Germany. He wrote and he kept writing.
What he built
The lasting work was structural and unglamorous: monthly, quarterly and yearly meetings; records of births, marriages and burials; oversight, poor relief, and care for the families of prisoners. He held that structure together through the separations that John Perrot and later John Wilkinson and John Story raised against it. He died at Gracechurch Street in London on the thirteenth of the eleventh month, 1690, two days after preaching, and was buried at Bunhill Fields.
About this edition
Every sentence has been rebuilt for a modern reader. His vocabulary of conviction — Truth, the Seed, Convincement, First-day, the numbered months — is bracketed on first use and then left alone, because translating it would translate him out of the book. Four hundred and one Scripture and reference links are set into the text; every Scripture reference was checked against the King James text rather than recalled, and every person and place link was checked by hand, with doubtful ones dropped rather than guessed. The testimonies of William Penn and Thomas Ellwood close the volume.
