Charles James Fox PC (24 January 1749 – 13 September 1806), styled
The Honourable from 1762, was a prominent British
Whig statesman whose parliamentary career spanned 38 years of the late 18th and early 19th centuries and who was the arch-rival of
William Pitt the Younger. His father
Henry, a leading Whig of his day, had similarly been the great rival of
Pitt's famous father. He rose to prominence in the
House of Commons as a forceful and eloquent speaker with a notorious and colourful private life, though his opinions were rather conservative and conventional. However, with the coming of the
American War of Independence and the influence of the Whig
Edmund Burke, Fox's opinions evolved into some of the most radical ever to be aired in the
Parliament of his era.