Joseph Fox

Joseph Fox (7 November 1775 – 11 April 1816) was an English dental surgeon, known also as a philanthropist. He was a pioneer writer and lecturer on dentistry.

Early life He was the son of Joseph Fox, a dentist, and his wife, Mary Rogers, daughter of John Rogers, a Baptist minister of Southwark, and was born in Crooked Lane, in the City of London. A medical student at Guy's Hospital by 1794, he became dresser to the surgeon Henry Cline. According to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, there was no British precedent, and possibly none worldwide. With Corston and William Allen, Fox helped put the society, which became in time the British and Foreign School Society, on a sound basis.

Lancaster himself chafed under the committee's tutelage, and became resentful. By 1812 he branched out with a boarding school at Tooting, without approval. Francis Place joined the committee that year, and a rupture became inevitable by 1814, with Lancaster resigning amid acrimony and alleged scandal.

In 1814, Fox and Allen bought into the New Lanark project. Fox supported Allen in his successful effort to make Owen allow religious education and the Bible in New Lanark's schools.

Death Fox died on 11 April 1816, at his house in Argyle Street, London.

Associations Fox was a member of the Askesian Society, and from 1798 was a supporter of Edward Jenner, making his house available for vaccinations. In 1800 he joined the Royal Institution. He corresponded with Josiah Wedgwood II, in particular on the topic of porcelain false teeth.

Works

The Natural History of the Human Teeth (1803) A Comparative View of the Plans of Education, as Detailed in the Publications of Dr. Bell and Mr. Lancaster (1808) A Vindication of Mr Lancaster's System of Education from the Aspersions of Professor Marsh, the Quarterly, British, and Anti-Jacobin Reviews, &c., &c. (1812) Written by Fox under a pseudonym, against Herbert Marsh and other Anglican clergy. The letters making up the work were first published in The Statesman. There is a comparison of the Lancastrian system with that of Andrew Bell, a Scottish Episcopalian. This and the previous book were contributions to a controversy, along the divide caused by nonconformism, in which Robert Southey involved himself, in the Quarterly Review.

Family Fox married in 1808 Ann Gibbs. They had a son and a daughter.