Robert Were Fox the Younger

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Robert Were Fox FRS (April 26, 1789 – July 25, 1877), English geologist and natural philosopher, known today mainly for his work on the temperature of the earth and his construction of a compass to measure magnetic dip at sea. He was a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and was descended from members who had long settled in Cornwall, although he was not related to George Fox who had introduced the community into the county.[1]

Contents

[edit] Life and family

Fox was born in 1789 at Falmouth, the son of Robert Were Fox (1754 - 1818)[2] and his wife, Elizabeth Tregelles. In 1814, Fox the Younger married Maria Barclay (1785 – 1858), daughter of Robert and Rachel Barclay of Bury Hill, near Dorking, Surrey. Her sister, Lucy, married Fox's elder brother, George Croker Fox.[3] Robert Were Fox the Younger and his wife had three children, Anna Maria (1816 – 1897), Barclay (1817 – 1855) and Caroline (1819 – 1871).[4] Caroline became a noted diarist.[5]

Fox was involved in many aspects of his family's businesses, along with his many brothers. He also served as Honorary Consul of the U.S.A in Falmouth from 1819 to 1854.

Fox's gardens at Rosehill[6] and Penjerrick, near Falmouth, became noted for the number of exotic plants which he and his son, Barclay, had naturalized.

Robert Were Fox the Younger died on July 25, 1877 and was buried at the Quaker Burial Ground at Budock.

[edit] Scientific work

Experimental apparatus of Fox
Experimental apparatus of Fox[7]

Fox's work was in what today would be referred to as geophysics. He was distinguished for his researches on the internal temperature of the earth, contributing papers to the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall,[8] and being the first to prove that temperature definitely increases with depth (the geothermal gradient), his observations being conducted in Cornish mines from 1815 for a period of forty years.[9] In 1829 he began a set of experiments on the artificial production of miniature metalliferous veins by means of the long-continued influence of electric currents, and his main results were published in 1836.[10]

In 1834 Fox constructed an improved form of deflector dipping needle compass, or dip circle, for polar navigation.[11] One was used by Sir James Clark Ross on his Antarctic expedition and used to discover the position of the South magnetic pole.[12]

Robert Were Fox, his cousin, George Croker Fox (1784-1850) and brother, Alfred Fox, assembled excellent collections of minerals, which are now in the British Museum (Natural History), given by Arthur Russell.[13]

[edit] Honours and activities

The Society owns a collection of 125 letters addressed to Fox and his family.[15]

[edit] Selected writings

The following is a very incomplete list of Fox's writings. According to The Dictionary of National Biography (1889), Fox authored 52 scientific papers.[16]

  • Fox, Robert Were (1830). "On the Electro-Magnetic Properties of Metalliferous Veins in the Mines of Cornwall". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 120: 399 – 414. doi:10.1098/rstl.1830.0027. 
  • Fox, Robert Were (1831). "On the Variable Intensity of Terrestrial Magnetism, and the Influence of the Aurora Borealis upon It". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 121: 199 – 207. doi:10.1098/rstl.1831.0012. 
  • Fox, Robert Were (1830 – 1837). "On Certain Irregularities in the Magnetic Needle, Produced by Partial Warmth, and the Relations Which Appear to Subsist between Terrestrial Magnetism and the Geological Structure and Thermo-Electrical Currents of the Earth". Abstracts of the Papers Printed in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 3: 123 – 125. doi:10.1098/rspl.1830.0066. 
  • A Catalogue of the Works of Robert Were Fox, F.R.S., with a Sketch of his Life (1878), by J. H. Collins, Truro, Lake & Lake.

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ^ The main source for this article is ODNB entry: Denise Crook, ‘Fox, Robert Were (1789–1877)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 13 June 2006. A Catalogue of the Works of Robert Were Fox, F.R.S., with a Sketch of his Life, by John Henry Collins, Lake & Lake, Truro, 1878 (66 pages and 2 plates) referred to by Encyclopedia Britannica (1911) has not been seen by the current editor. Page 133 of the Dictionary of National Biography (1899) also has information on Fox.
  2. ^ His father bore the same name and lived 1754–1818. He also merited an entry in ODNB: Philip Payton, ‘Fox, Robert Were (1754–1818)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 13 June 2006.
  3. ^ Barclay family tree Note that at least three members of the family had the name "George Croker Fox".
  4. ^ Family Tree
  5. ^ Barclay Fox's journals also have been published.
  6. ^ Sandra & George Pritchard's Fox Rosehill Garden website (accessed 9 December 2007). The Fox Rosehill Gardens and Penjerrick are now both open to the public.
  7. ^ Fox, Robert Wear (sic) (1837). "Experiments Illustrative of the Influence of Voltaic Electricity on Copper Pyrites". The Annals of Electricity, Magnetism, and Chemistry 1: 133 – 134. 
  8. ^ Denise Crook, ‘Fox, Robert Were (1789–1877)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 15 Nov 2007
  9. ^ Mining History Site places Fox in his context.
  10. ^ Fox, Robert Were (1836). "Observations on Mineral Veins". Reports of the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society. 
  11. ^ Dipping Needle In A New and Universal Dictionary of the Marine by William Falconer, improved and modernised by William Burney; T. Cadell & William Davey and John Murray, 1830: Pages 122, 123 and Plate IX, Figure 11, the dip of a needle is defined as

    "a certain property which all needles possess when rubbed with a lodestone of inclining the north end below the level of the horizon: this property found to increase in going northward."

  12. ^ Archives of Natural History
  13. ^ Mineralogy references: Embery, P.G. and Symes, R.F. (1987) Minerals of Cornwall and Devon, British Museum (Natural History), ISBN Hardback 0-565-01046-8 Paperback 0-565-00989-3.
  14. ^ Lists of Royal Society Fellows 1660-2007
  15. ^ Royal Society Library: Collection of the Month, September 2005, Fox papers and listing of archives
  16. ^ Harrison, W. Jerome (1889), “Robert Were Fox”, in Stephen, Leslie, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 2, New York: Macmillan and Company, pp. 133 

[edit] External links


Persondata
NAME Fox, Robert Were
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Robert Were Fox the Younger (his father bore the same name), Robert Were Fox F.R.S.
SHORT DESCRIPTION Businessman and Scientist
DATE OF BIRTH April 26, 1789
PLACE OF BIRTH Falmouth, Cornwall, U.K.
DATE OF DEATH July 25, 1877),
PLACE OF DEATH Falmouth, Cornwall, U.K.

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.