MR. WILLIAM JOHNSON FOX.

New Zealander, Volume XXI, Issue 2222, 13 September 1864, Page 5

MR. WILLIAM JOHNSON FOX.

One of the ablest advocates of free trade, who won laurels in that cause when it had few supporters in the country, is gone. The late member for Oldham died on the third of June in his 78th year. He owed his position tirely to his own efforts, and his name must therefore be added to the noble list of those who from the lowest ranks have risen to distinction, and done good service to the State by the sheer force of their natural intelligence and reso ution. His father was a small farmer near Wrentham, in Suffolk, where the future advoewte of free trade was born in 1786. Shotly after the boy’s birth, however, his father, being obliged to give up his very limited husbandry, removed to Norwhich, and thenceforth worked there as a weaver, his son, during his early years, working with him as a factory boy. His parents belonged to a body of Nonconformists of old standing in Norwich, and the boy having shown signs of superior talents, was sent by the church to a small congregational college at Homerton, then under the presidency of the late Dr. Pye Smith. After leaving college, he entered on the work of the ministry, but his theological inquiries and speculatinns h.v’ng carried him beyond the dogmatic conclusions of his own body, he eventually took up a position, unconnected with any denomination, as preacher or lecturer at South-place, Chapel, Finsbury. Here his eloquence and character gained him a crowd of attentive hearers, including some of the most eminent literary men of the day. While at Finsbury, Mr- Fox took an active part in public affairs, both as a writer and speaker. He joined Sir William Molesworth, Mr J. S. Mill* and other leading philosophical Liberals, in establishing the Westminster Review, and it is said to have written the first article In the first number. When the anti-corn-law agitation was organised, Mr. Fox’s power as a speaker made him a very valuable acquisition to the active staff of the League in 1847 he was returned to Parliament as member for Oldham, and, with the exception of a few months, continued to represent the borough until about a year and a half ago, when failing health obliged him to resign his seat. —Home News , June 27.