Charles James Fox

Charles James Fox (1749-1806) entered Parliament in 1768.  Known for his oratorical skills, Fox became one of the leading Whig figures in parliament for nearly forty years, mostly as a representative for Westminster. After serving briefly in the Rockingham administration in the early 1780s, Fox endeared himself to nonconformists by his support of the bills for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts (1787, 1788, and 1790), as well as his support of Wilberforce’s proposals to end the slave trade.  Fox’s praise of the French Revolution led to a break with his old Whig associates, especially Edmund Burke. Fox initially opposed England’s war with France as well as the Pitt administration’s efforts to restrict political dissent in England in the early and mid-1790s. By the time he became Foreign Secretary of State in the Grenville administration in early 1806, he had changed his position on prosecuting the war with France, recognizing the inevitability of England’s resistance to Napoleon’s aggression. One of his final acts in parliament, shortly before his death in September 1806, was to introduce, once again, a bill for the abolition of the slave trade, which was finally passed the next year.