A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Fox, George
FOX. (Retired Commander, 1847. f-p., 19; h-p., 33.)
George Fox was born 28 Sept. 1773, at Scarborough, co. York.
This officer entered the Navy, 26 July, 1795, as A.B., on board the Malabar 54, Capt. Thos. Parr, which ship, after assisting at the reduction of Demerara, Essequibo, Berbice, and Ste. Lucie, foundered on her passage home from the West Indies, 10 Oct. 1796. Mr. Fox, who then joined the Pelter gun-brig, Lieut.-Commander Walsh, subsequently became Midshipman of the Pallas 36, Capt. Hon. Henry Curzon, and in that ship was wrecked, in Plymouth Sound, 4 April, 1798. During the next two years we find him chiefly employed in the Foudroyant, Barfleur, and Queen Charlotte, flagships of Lord Keith, under whom he pursued the French fleet up and down the Mediterranean, and served at the blockade of Malta. In Feb. 1800 he assisted Lord Cochrane in navigating Le Généreux, a French ship-of-the-line, which had just been captured, to Minorca; after which he accompanied his Lordship into the Speedy 14 – assisted in that vessel at the capture of a settee of greatly superior force – and on being invested with the charge of the prize, and of a convoy, succeeded in beating off two powerful row-galleys. In June, 1800, having rejoined Lord Keith in the Minotaur 74, Mr. Fox witnessed the fall of Genoa; from the mole of which place he had the singular good fortune, after the battle of Marengo, of effecting the deliverance of a British 64 and two transports, all of which but for his own individual exertions would inevitably have been destroyed. The courage and ability displayed by Mr. Fox on this occasion were so marked as to render his enrolnent among the officers of their ship an object of ambition to many of the Captains of Lord Keith’s fleet, but so high was the opinion entertained of his merits by the Admiral that he was unwilling to part with him, and in consequence retained his services until enabled, on his having passed his examination, to promote him to the rank of Lieutenant. Previously to that event, which took place 23 Aug. 1801, Mr. Fox, who had followed Lord Keith into the Foudroyant, further attended the expedition to Egypt, and had the honour, when Sir Ralph Abercromby was brought on board with his death-wound, to conduct that heroic chief to the cabin which had been assigned to his use. On the occasion of his promotion, he rejoined the Minotaur, then commanded by Capt. Thos. Louis, with whom he returned home and was paid off in March, 1802. His after appointments were to the successive command, on the Home station – 4 Feb. 1804, of the Sheerness tender – 29 Sept. 1810, of the Watchful, a similar vessel – and, 25 May, 1815, of the Brevdrageren gun-brig, which he paid off 24 Aug. following. Mr. Fox, who appears to have been very undeservedly passed over in the general promotion which followed the termination of hostilities, accepted his present rank 28 Jan. 1847.
He married, 24 Feb. 1806, Elizabeth, daughter of Thos. Bamby, Esq., of Sutton, near Hull, an eminent merchant and shipowner, by whom he has an only surviving child.