George Fox
George Fox (1624-1691) is widely regarded as the founder of the Religious Society of Friends, also known as the Quakers. Fox was raised in the Anglican Church but was dissatisfied with his spiritual growth. At the age of 19, he left home to wander the English countryside in search of a greater spiritual understanding. In 1647, Fox reported that he heard God speak to him, an event which radically changed his beliefs about man's relationship with God.
Although other religious dissenters were emerging at the time, Fox is generally credited with starting the Quaker movement. In 1652 after passing over Pendle Hill from which he received a vision that allowed him to "see in what places he had a great people to be gathered", he came across groups of Seekers whom he convinced in such numbers that they provided the effective start to the movement.
Early life
Fox was born in July 1624 in Fenny Drayton in Leicestershire. His father, Christopher Fox, a church warden known as righteous Christer, was a weaver. He himself was apprenticed to a shoemaker. From about the age of 19, as the English Civil War was developing,he began wandering on a personal religious quest, in the course of which he received what he called "openings" of personal revelation, "the Light". Around 1646/477 he began to "declare truth", engaging in preaching. This resulted in imprisonments in Nottingham and Derby, which did nothing to deter him[1].
Preaching "the Truth"
In 1651 Fox was in Derbyshire and South Yorkshire, where he found people who had had similar experience to his[2], and convinced others, and from there he moved on, through West Yorkshire to Lancashire.