FOX, Thomas (1622-66), of the Moat House, Tamworth, Staffs. and Whitefriars, London.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1660-1690, ed. B.D. Henning, 1983
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

b. 4 Mar. 1622, 3rd s. of Edward Fox, mercer (d.1640) of Birmingham, Warws. by Elizabeth, da. and h. of Hugh Grasbrook of Hints, Staffs. educ. I. Temple 1648, called 1656. m. (1) Mary, da. of Richard Mason of Newton, Salop, s.p.; (2) 28 Sept. 1654, Judith, da. of Sir Henry Boothby, 1st Bt., of Bradlow Ash, Derbys., s.p.1

Offices Held

Capt. (parliamentary) ?to 1646.2

Agent for sequestrations, Salop 1650-5; town clerk, Tamworth to 1663; commr. for scandalous ministers, Staffs. 1654, assessment, Warws. 1657, Staffs. and Warws. Aug. 1660-1, militia, Staffs. Mar. 1660; j.p. Staffs. Mar.-July 1660.3

Biography

Fox and his elder brothers were all in arms for Parliament in the Civil War, and he may also have been a kinsman of Col. John Fox, the ‘jovial tinker’ and commander of the Edgbaston garrison. A scrivener by trade, he settled in Shrewsbury on demobilization and read for the bar, while acting as sequestrator of Royalists’ estates. He became town clerk of Tamworth, perhaps on the recommendation of his ‘worthy friend’ Michael Biddulph, a Presbyterian like himself, and was returned for the borough to Richard Cromwell’s Parliament, and again at the general election of 1660. In the Convention he was appointed only to the committees to investigate the unauthorized publication of parliamentary proceedings and to draft a proviso to the indemnity bill for protecting the purchasers of estates, and after the summer recess to those for the bills to suppress profanity and settle the militia. Although an inactive committeeman and a silent Member, he doubtless voted with the Opposition and did not stand again. A report on the Staffordshire gentry, after recalling his military record and ‘violent’ religious convictions, described him as ‘moneyed’, with ‘very able and dangerous parts, being bred up to the law’. On removal from office by the commissioners of corporations, he made over his estate, valued at £200 p.a., to his brother-in-law Sir William Boothby, and settled in London. He died in Dublin in 1666, presumably on a visit to his brother, whose grandson George Fox was returned for Hindon as a Tory in 1741.4

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Authors: M. W. Helms / A. M. Mimardière

Notes

  • 1. Glover, Derbys. ii. 582; Shaw, Staffs. i. 422; Add 28176, f. 224.
  • 2. Active Parliamentarians (Staffs. Rec. Soc. ser. 4, ii), 61.
  • 3. Cal. Comm. Comp. 319, 725; CSP Dom. 1663-4, p. 23.
  • 4. Gentry of Staffs. (Staffs. Rec. Soc. ser. 4, ii), 16.