Summary
George Fox, born in 1624 in Leicestershire, is best known as the founder of the Quakers. In early life he was apprenticed to a shoemaker, and for a while he worked as a shepherd as well. But it was as a preacher travelling widely across the land that he made his name, and also received the most abuse. As he writes: "... the people fell upon me in great rage, struck me down and almost stifled and smothered me. And I was cruelly beaten and bruised by them with their hands, Bibles and sticks."
Nominating the dissenting George Fox is Ann Limb, chair of the Scout Association. Also in studio, Jonathan Fryer, editor of George Fox and the Children of the Light.
Matthew Parris presents, and the producer in Bristol is Miles Warde.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2016.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Great Lives is a download from Radio 4. |
| 0:02.7 | We hope you enjoy what you're about to hear. |
| 0:05.6 | We've been rather lacking in religious leaders |
| 0:08.2 | in recent years here on Great Lives. |
| 0:10.4 | In fact, I don't think we've had one proposed for over three years, so I'm delighted to say that today's |
| 0:16.1 | nomination is George Fox, dissenter and founder of the Religious Society of Friends, also known as Quakers, and a man who really ought to be a great |
| 0:25.8 | deal better known than he is. Proposing him is a woman of exceptional talents, the first female |
| 0:31.8 | chair of the Scouts Association, and so much more besides, Anne Lim. |
| 0:36.2 | Welcome to Great Lives and tell us why you've chosen George Fox. |
| 0:41.0 | Aside from the obvious debt of gratitude I owe him because I am myself a Quaker, so had the |
| 0:48.2 | religious society of friends as we now know it not been formed, I wouldn't have had the framework to my own life, but I've chosen |
| 0:56.6 | him because he was so much more. He was a dissenter, as you say, he was a non-conformist, he challenged |
| 1:02.1 | orthodoxy, he was a social reformer in his way. |
| 1:05.7 | He was a preacher of course because we are talking about the 17th century after all and people |
| 1:12.1 | went around the country preaching but to me he was a man of immense |
| 1:17.2 | insight and thought and he was a man of influence rather than power. |
| 1:23.0 | George Fox wasn't born a Quaker, he couldn't be because he founded Quaker |
| 1:28.3 | and nor were you? |
| 1:29.3 | That's correct. |
| 1:31.6 | People who are now born into Quakers are referred to as birthright friends. |
| 1:37.0 | But most people, and this is worldwide as well as in the UK, who call themselves Quakers these days are really what are referred to as Quakers by |
| 1:48.0 | convince. We have become convinced of that direct experience of God that George Fox had way back in the |
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