Anna Maria Fox

Anna Maria Fox (21 February 1816 – 18 November 1897 ) was a promoter of the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society and the artistic and cultural development of Falmouth in Cornwall, UK.

Family links Anna Maria Fox was the eldest child of Robert Were Fox FRS (26 April 1789 – 25 July 1877) and Maria Barclay (1785–1858), his wife.

Her father was a member of the Quaker Fox family of Falmouth and her mother of the Quaker Barclay family of Bury Hill, near Dorking. Her maternal grandmother was a first cousin of Elizabeth Fry.

Her siblings were Barclay Fox (6 September 1817 – 10 March 1855) and Caroline Fox (24 May 1819 – 12 January 1871). The family lived at Rosehill and Penjerrick

She never married. With her sister, Caroline, she raised the four sons of her brother, Barclay, after the death of their parents.

Anna Maria outlived her sister by sixteen years, which Thomas Hodgkin described as a "widowhood". She died aged 81 on 18 November 1897 and was buried at the Quaker Burial Ground in Budock, in the same plot as her sister, Caroline

The Journals In their teenage years, Robert Were Fox challenged his children to keep journals, offering a guinea reward for the first year completed. All three kept journals for many years.

Anna Maria commissioned a relative by marriage, Horace Pym, to edit and publish her sister's journal. The book Memories of old friends was published by Smith, Elder & Co. ten years after Caroline Fox's death. It sold well. Before her death, Anna Maria arranged for all the original volumes of Caroline's journals to be burnt. A further selection from Memories of old friends, edited by Wendy Monk, was published in 1972.

Barclay Fox's journal, edited by Raymond Brett, was published in 1979.

Anna Maria gave instructions that "no word of my journal is to be published".

The Poly is based in Church Street, Falmouth and operates as a cultural venue.

Painting and art education Fox was a good amateur painter and organised of the Art section of the Annual Exhibition at the "Poly". The Cornwall Art Union was formed in 1852, associated with the Poly. Art classes run by the Poly were a precursor of the Falmouth School of Art.

Commemoration The first purpose-built building of the Falmouth School of Art, in Arwenack Street, was given in memory of Anna Maria Fox. The building, officially opened in August 1902 was refurbished in 2007.

In 2016 a year of community-centred events celebrated Fox's 200th birthday. Led by Scary Little Girls, the project gathered oral testimonies from members of the Fox family, local residents with ties to Anna Maria's legacy, and people associated with the gardens, arts school buildings and societies she founded. These histories were then commemorated with special blue fox plaques, linked together into a heritage trail by an app developed in partnership with Falmouth Arts School and University. Scary Little Girls collaborated with The Poly, Falmouth University, Falmouth School of Art, Mawnan Church of England VA Primary School, the Fox family, Falmouth History Group and heritage volunteers to document Anna Maria Fox.

Gallery: Falmouth School of Art's first building

Gallery: Wellington Terrace Primary School building

Pets and personality She kept a variety of exotic pets – including marmosets, parrots, love-birds, cockatiels, canaries and avadavats. Thomas Hodgkin notes that whilst her sister Caroline was prone to sarcasm, Anna Maria always had an optimistic and less critical attitude to other people.

Likenesses The portrait of Anna Maria Fox by Henry Scott Tuke, reproduced in the 1897 Poly Annual Report, is currently on display at the Falmouth Gallery, in the Moor (28 June 2012). A photograph of Tuke painting Anna Maria is at the Tate Gallery. In Old Falmouth Miss Susan Gay reproduces a full-length photographic portrait "at Penjerrick Garden", opposite page 15.

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