The West Midlands in the Civil Wars
Tinker Fox – Birmingham’s Roundhead Brigand
This short film ‘Tinker Fox: Birmingham’s Roundhead Brigand’ brings to life the civil war experiences of John Fox, scornfully nicknamed 'the Jovial Tinker' by his royalist enemies. Despite his lowly origins as a Walsall metalworker, Fox was commissioned as a parliamentarian captain in 1643 and then as a colonel in 1644.
Through telling his story, the film explores how the civil wars were fought out in the West Midland districts after Prince Rupert’s infamous firing of Birmingham in April 1643.
Rather than the usual focus on the famous set piece battles such as Edgehill and Naseby, Fox's civil war experience reveals a continuous low intensity conflict. This comprised assaults on fortified strongpoints, raid, counter-raid, scouting, intelligence gathering, hostage-taking, imprisonment, plunder and extortion.
It captures something of Fox's personal notoriety as his poorly-paid troopers were compared to bandits for their treatment of the civilian population. As a tradesman who did not know his place, Fox came to embody all that the gentry feared most about how civil war was threatening the social order. Fox established a garrison network that included Edgbaston House, Hawkesley House and Stourton Castle. The film also explores how Fox went on to play an unexpected key role during the trial of Charles I.
Directed by Simon Russell, this History West Midlands film includes discussion from Professor Andrew Hopper of Oxford Lifelong Learning. It is enlivened by dramatic reconstructions of Fox's activities by Time Will Tell Theatre filmed with the kind cooperation of Avoncroft Museum of Buildings in Bromsgrove.
Further reading
Midland History
24 (1999)Andrew Hopper, ‘“Tinker” Fox and the politics of garrison warfare in the west midlands, 1643–50’, pp. 98–113.
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
(2004)Andrew Hopper, ‘Fox, John [called Tinker Fox] (bap. 1610, d. 1650), parliamentarian army officer’.
Midland History
35:1 (2010)C.D. Gilbert, 'A dramatic incident in royalist Worcestershire: "Tinker" Fox's raid on Bewdley of May 1644', pp. 129-35.
Midland History
47:1 (2022)Jonathan Worton, 'Coursing the Tinkerley Fox: tactics of garrison warfare in the west midlands during 1643-1644', pp. 38-56.
Midland History
49:2 (2024)Richard Dace, 'Muster rolls of the Edgbaston garrison, 1644-1646', pp. 160-188.
