Fox, George

(born July 1624, Drayton-in-the-Clay, Leicestershire, Eng.—died Jan. 13, 1691, London) English preacher and founder of the Society of Friends, or Quakers. The son of a weaver, he left home at age 18 in search of religious experience. Probably beginning as a Puritan, he reacted even more strongly than the Puritans against the tradition of the Church of England and came to regard personal experience as the true source of authority, placing God-given “inward light,” or inspiration, above creeds and scripture. He traveled the countryside on foot, preaching to small groups, and he and other preachers established congregations. The Society of Friends arose in the 1650s. The Quakers' denunciation of ministers and public officials and their refusal to pay tithes or take oaths led to persecution, and Fox was imprisoned eight times between 1649 and 1673. He made missionary trips to Ireland, the Caribbean islands, North America, and northern Europe. His Journal gives an account of his life and of the rise of Quakerism.