Books by Barclay Fox

Barclay Fox's diaries, from 1832 until his marriage in 1844, were first published in 1979 to great acclaim, as it was immediately recognised that his daily record of life in early 19th century England amounted to much more than provincial jottings. His membership of the Quaker Fox family of Falmouth, Cornwall, with its wide involvement in the mining and iron industries, in shipping and in the early days of the railway, brought him into close contact with many of the most interesting and prominent characters of the age, such as John Stuart Mill, the political economist, Thomas Carlyle, the writer and historian, and Barclay's own closest friend, William E. Forster, who became a great Liberal statesman. This new edition publishes for the first time the ten further years of Barclay Fox's Journal, taking the story up until six months before his premature death at the age of 37 in March 1855. It is fascinating both in its details of his domestic life following his marriage and in its coverage of a particularly eventful period in European history, which saw the tragedy of the Irish potato famine, the turbulent Year of Revolutions in 1848 and the outbreak of the Crimean War. Barclay Fox emerges vividly from these pages as a loyal and likeable friend and family man, a considerate and philanthropic employer, and as a humane and responsible citizen whose active Quakerism gave him a broadness of tolerance and opinions which were in many ways far ahead of his time.