Charles Masson Fox (9 November 1866 – 11 October 1935) was a prominent Cornish businessman who achieved international prominence in the world of chess problems and a place in the gay history of Edwardian England.
Masson Fox was born into a prominent Quaker family (although he was not related to the Quakers’ founder George Fox) and was a cousin of the fraudulent sinologist Sir Edmund Backhouse, 2nd Baronet. Living throughout his life in the Cornis...
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Charles Masson Fox (9 November 1866 – 11 October 1935) was a prominent Cornish businessman who achieved international prominence in the world of chess problems and a place in the gay history of Edwardian England.
Masson Fox was born into a prominent Quaker family (although he was not related to the Quakers’ founder George Fox) and was a cousin of the fraudulent sinologist Sir Edmund Backhouse, 2nd Baronet. Living throughout his life in the Cornish seaside town of Falmouth, Fox in the early decades of his life was a senior partner of his family’s timber firm, Fox Stanton & Company, and was also on the Board of Messrs G C Fox & Company, a long-established firm of shipping agents.
Fox is described by the distinguished chess historian Thomas Rayner Dawson (1889 – 1951) as “a friendly man, kind, mellow, lovable, bringing peace and comfort and serene joy with him”. He was also a discreet but active homosexual. In 1909 he visited Venice with his friend James Cockerton, meeting the writer...
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