Author: Fox, Samuel
Biography:
FOX, Samuel (1801-70: ancestry.com)
The second son of Alethea (Fowler) and Edward Fox, who had married at Derby St. Werburgh in 1783, he was born on 11 Feb. 1801. He matriculated at Pembroke College, Oxford, in 1821, graduated BA 1825 (MA 1828), and became a clergyman (ordained deacon 1826, priest 1827). He served churches in his own county: Mickleover (1826-9), Morley (1829-70), Horsley (1837-70), and Smalley (1844-70). His wife was Caroline, married in the late 1830s; they had four children, all born between 1840 and 1848. He published on church history (Monks and Monasticism, 1848; The Noble Army of Martyrs, 1850; The Holy Church throughout the World, 1857) but his primary interest was in Old English, in which he did pioneering work. His translation, with notes, of Hickes's Menologium was the first in English; he also published King Alfred's Version of . . . Boethius (1835). He was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a good friend of the eminent Anglo-Saxonist Joseph Bosworth (1788-1876). A conscientious pastor and citizen, he was seized by a "fit of apoplexy" at a meeting of the Belper Board of Guardians and died on 3 Sept. 1870. He was buried at Morley, leaving an estate of under £12,000. (findmypast.com 21 Oct. 2021; CCEd 21 Oct. 2021; Alumni Oxonienses; T. W. Thompson, "Samuel Fox and the Derbyshire Boswells," Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society 3 [1924] 158-79; Derbyshire Advertiser and Journal 9 Sept. 1870; Sheffield Daily Telegraph 5 Sept. 1870)