Robert Were Fox the Younger

Robert Were Fox FRS (26 April 1789 – 25 July 1877) was a British geologist, natural philosopher and inventor. He is known mainly for his work on the temperature of the earth and his construction of a compass to measure magnetic dip at sea. Life and family Fox was born on 26 April 1789 at Falmouth, England, the eldest son of Robert Were Fox (1754–1818) and his wife, Elizabeth Tregelles. He had nine siblings. The Fox family were members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and were descended from members who had long settled in Cornwall, although they were not related to George Fox who had introduced the community into the county. In 1814, Fox the Younger married Maria Barclay (1785–1858), daughter of Robert and Rachel Barclay of Bury Hill, near Dorking, Surrey. Maria's sister, Lucy, married Fox's cousin, George Croker Fox (1784–1850).