A cousin of the Fox family of Falmouth he was a senior partner of his family’s timber merchants, Fox Stanton & Company, and was also on the Board of  the shipping agents, G. C. Fox & Company.

Described as ‘a friendly man, kind, mellow, lovable, bringing peace and comfort and serene joy with him’, Fox was also homosexual.  In 1913, he was subjected to a blackmail attempt by Edith Wagner of Shepherd’s Bush, who accused him of seducing her twenty four year old son, Ernest who had met Fox 1904 but had seen nothing of him since 1906. Fox sent a friend with £150 to exchange for two letters he had written to Ernest and a written retraction of the allegation. 

In July, however, he received a letter demanding another £150.  Fox met Wagner who threatened to travel to Falmouth to ruin him but following consultations with his solicitors, the pair were prosecuted.  Wagner was gaoled for five years with hard labour and her son was gaoled for one year, also with hard labour. 

With echoes of the scandal of Oscar Wilde (November 5^th), the publicity around the case destroyed his social standing in restrained Cornish, Edwardian society, and had inevitably damaging consequences for the family businesses. Subsequently, Fox split his time between Falmouth and London and concentrated on his love of chess, becoming President of the Cornwall Chess Association.