University of Virginia Library

Family and School

The trajectory of David Foxon's life was from a family background
of provincial nonconformity, through public school, war-time intelligence,
and Magdalen College, Oxford, to the British Museum Library,
and finally to university teaching at Queen's Ontario and Oxford. The
Foxon family had been stocking weavers; Foxon's grandfather kept a
couple of weaving-frames in his cottage. He had eleven children, of
whom Walter, Foxon's father, was the youngest. After leaving school at
twelve, Walter went to work in a stocking factory, but his intelligence
and gift for preaching were recognized at Chapel and he was encouraged
to go in for the Methodist ministry. He trained at Didsbury College in
Manchester, and married Susan Fairweather, the daughter of a well-todo
circuit steward in Clitheroe, Lancashire, whom he met when visiting
the town to take services. Walter Foxon enjoyed a high reputation as a
preacher (`a good preacher, slightly old-fashioned' was his son's verdict),
and at one point in his career he turned down the prestigious post at
Spurgeon's Tabernacle in South London. Susan Foxon, a firm advocate
of women's rights and of total abstinence, was an active pamphleteer
and campaigner. Walter Foxon's ability to attract and hold crowds led
to his appointment to ministries at a series of seaside towns. David was
born at Paignton on 9 January 1923 (he was an only child), and his
parents' subsequent homes were at Bournemouth, St Anne's on Sea,
Finchley, Blackpool, and Newquay, where, after a spell as President of
the District, Walter Foxon retired.

David Foxon did not share his father's religious beliefs, but he profoundly
admired his father's compassion and sense of social responsibility.
Looking back over his life, he believed that some attitudes from
his early years—perhaps more recognizably Quaker than Methodist—had
stayed with him: a liking for simple and direct truth-telling, with a
corresponding anxiety to avoid equivocation and economy with the
truth; a distaste for the hypocrisy (particularly over sexual matters)
that for much of the century oiled the machinery of daily living; and
a dislike of violence and conflict. The first two of these attitudes can
be seen directly in his career as a scholar in his lucid, if mild-mannered,

exposure of the frauds of T. J. Wise and in his investigation of the
history of pornography while the subject was largely taboo. The third
attitude might possibly have led to his being a conscientious objector
during the Second World War, a potential crisis from which a sympathetic
headmaster rescued him by recommending him for intelligence
work at Bletchley Park. Foxon also profited from his Methodist background
by being brought up in a culture of improvised preaching. He
took public speaking as a matter of course, enjoyed it, and throughout
his academic career he was able to speak without notes and hold an
audience.

School, Kingswood near Bath, was a Methodist foundation, one of
whose aims was to provide for the education of the sons of itinerant
preachers.[8] Foxon spoke of it with affection as a civilized society, tolerant
and humane, with a strong record of academic achievement. E. P.
Thompson, the historian (`a bit of an exotic'), and A. N. Flew, the
philosopher, were Foxon's contemporaries there. The school had resources
that particularly appealed to Foxon, including a fine and wellstocked
new library. It also had an outstanding headmaster in A. B.
Sackett.[9] Foxon was sixteen when World War II broke out, and it was
clear that if the war continued he would be called up for active service
when he was eighteen. Sackett, knowing and understanding Foxon's
scruples, recommended him to the Government Code and Cypher
School, which at the outbreak of war had moved from London to Bletchley
Park, where it was known as War Station X, or Room 47 Foreign
Office, or Government Communications Headquarters.[10] But before
going to Bletchley in 1942 Foxon had secured his place at Magdalen
College, Oxford. The choice of course was difficult for him. He had performed
at a high level in the School Certificate in all subjects and he
might have specialized in science or mathematics, but it was traditional
for the brightest boys at Kingswood to take classics and Foxon sat the
Oxford scholarship exam for Literae Humaniores (Greats). It was C. S.
Lewis, a member of the interviewing panel, who suggested that on the
basis of his general essay he would be better suited to English, and he sat
for an English scholarship successfully the following year. He had to wait
until 1946 before he could take up his place.