Joseph Fox

Joseph Fox (1776-1816) was a prominent dentist in Lombard Street and lecturer at Guy’s Hospital (Kent’s [1800]: 71), was for many years a leader in the Baptist church at Carter Lane, Southwark. Unlike his pastor, John Rippon, Fox remained sympathetic to reform and opposed the war with France well into the first decade of the nineteenth century. Fox was the grandson of the Independent minister John Rogers (d. 1791), who pastored the congregation at Collier’s-rents in Southwark, 1745-91. One of Rogers’s publications, Some serious and plain thoughts on the dress and taste of the present times. Wherein several scriptures ... are considered ... The lampoon in print and picture-shop is hinted, and the ridicule of newspapers is quoted ... by Antifop (1772), was sold by Martha Gurney. Rogers’s son, also named John, was a classmate of Flower’s at John Collett Ryland’s academy in Northampton in 1766-67 (“The Rev. John Collet Ryland’s Scholars” 25-27) and later became an Independent minister. Joseph Fox achieved considerable notoriety for his publication, The natural history and diseases of the human teeth (1806), which appeared in both English and American editions and was the standard textbook for dental students through much of the nineteenth century (the work was reprinted in 1981 as part of the Classics of Dentistry Library). In 1809 Fox served as the secretary for the Committee of the London Society for promoting Christianity among the Jews (Baptist Magazine [1809], 344). More importantly, Fox was an early proponent of Joseph Lancaster’s system of universal education, leading the committee in 1808 that replaced Lancaster and restored financial stability to his schools. Eventually this committee evolved into the British and Foreign School Society, of which Fox served as secretary. His work with the Lancastrian schools led to three publications: A comparative view of the plans of education, as detailed in the publications of Dr. Bell and Mr. Lancaster, with remarks on Dr. Bell’s “Madras school” ... (1809); A scriptural education the glory of England: being a defence of the Lancastrian plan of education and the Bible Society, in answer to the late public­ations of C. Daubeny ... (1810); and An appeal to the members of the London Missionary Society against a resolution of the directors of that society dated March 26, 1810 ... (1810). Fox’s obituary in the Baptist Magazine (1816) noted that “Few men have ever closed a career of more private and public usefulness, than hath this excellent individual ... In his religious profession he was a Baptist; and was distinguished at once by the decision and constancy of his own opinions, and by the exercise of christian love and charity towards those who conscientiously differed from himself” (254).