The English spiritual reformer George Fox (1624-1691) was the chief inspirer of the Society of Friends, or Quakers.

The son of a weaver, George Fox was born in July 1624 at Fenny Drayton, Leicestershire. He became a cobbler with little book learning beyond the Bible. When he was 19, a voice told him to "forsake all"; so he became a dropout, wandering about England in a solitary quest for religious truth. Gradually he clarified his beliefs, convinced that he derived them from direct experiences of God's light within him, "without the help of any man, book, or writing."

Holding that every man and woman could be similarly enlightened by Christ, Fox began "declaring truth" in public and developed into a dynamic, fanatically sincere speaker. He preached in barns, houses, and fields and in churches "after the priest had done"; but because his zeal sometimes led him to interrupt services, he...