Samson Fox
{{Short description|English industrialist and philanthropist}}
{{redirect|Samson fox|the fox species|Red fox}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2020}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Samson Fox
| image =Samson Fox00.jpg
| alt =
| caption =
| birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1838|7|11}}
| birth_place = Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire, UK
| death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|1903|10|24|1838|7|11}}
| death_place = Walsall, Staffordshire, UK
| spouse= {{Unbulleted list|Mary Anne Slinger |Annie Louise Baxter}}
| occupation = Engineer, industrialist and philanthropist
| known_for = {{Unbulleted list| Corrugated boiler flue | Pressed steel undercarriage | Water gas | Mayor of Harrogate | Funded building of Royal College of Music and Royal Hall, Harrogate }}
| awards = {{Unbulleted list| RSA gold medal | Legion of Honour }}
}}
Samson Fox, JP (11 July 1838 – 24 October 1903) was an English engineer, industrialist and philanthropist. He was elected Mayor of Harrogate in Yorkshire and the building of the Royal College of Music in London was funded largely by Fox.
Life and career
Samson Fox was born at Bowling, Bradford, Yorkshire, the son of Jonas Fox, a mill worker, by his marriage to Sarah Pearson,{{Cite episode |title=Emilia Fox |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b014hrn6 |accessdate=7 September 2011 |series=Who Do You Think You Are? |series-link=Who Do You Think You Are? (British TV series) |station=BBC One |airdate=7 September 2011 |series-no=8 |number=5 }} and the family shortly afterwards moved to live and work in nearby Leeds. At the age of eight Fox started work in a textile mill and at fifteen he became an apprentice in a toolmaking and foundry company. In his late twenties, he was running his own toolmaking business, called the Silver Cross Works.
Ten years later, in 1874, he set up the Leeds Forge Company to produce "Best Yorkshire" iron for locomotive and marine engine parts. In 1877 he developed the corrugated boiler flue for which he became famous. This simple idea involved corrugating the flue pipes inside the boiler, improving both their heat transfer capability and compressive strength, enabling smaller boilers working at higher pressures to be used with improved safety. "Fox Corrugated" was adopted as standard by the Admiralty and major steamship lines and was widely patented.{{cite web |url=http://www.mylearning.org/jpage.asp?journeyid=200&jpageid=766 |title=Originating in Leeds |publisher=Mylearning.org |year=2009 |accessdate=7 September 2011 }}
In 1887, Fox applied his knowledge and experience in forging metal to building forged pressed iron railway undercarriages and trucks. His railway trucks could support 120 tons without failing, were guaranteed for five years, and were soon being sold in Argentina, Belgium, British India, Japan, and Spain, in addition to England.{{cite web |url=http://www.midcontinent.org/rollingstock/builders/pressedsteel1.htm |title=Pressed Steel Car Company |publisher=Midcontinent.org |date=17 April 2006 |accessdate=7 September 2011 }} North America however was the world's biggest market, so in 1888 Fox went to the United States, where he made a deal with the famous railway salesman Diamond Jim Brady for Brady to sell American-made Fox trucks in America and to remit one third of the sale price back to Fox as commission. Brady's sales techniques soon succeeded, and in 1888 the Fox Solid Pressed Steel Company was incorporated to manufacture the trucks in Joliet, Illinois.
Fox won a number of awards for his work, including the Royal Society of Arts gold medal for his corrugated boiler flue and the French Legion of Honour.
File:Grove House, Harrogate - geograph.org.uk - 632636.jpg
Fox bought and extended Grove House in Harrogate, a Yorkshire spa town, and became a benefactor to the local community.{{cite web |url=http://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/wdytya_emiliafox.php |title= Emilia Fox |work=The Genealogist |accessdate=7 September 2011 }} He provided Harrogate with its first steam fire engine, built the Grove Road School opposite his home, funded the Royal Hall,{{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/the-northerner/2012/may/04/edwardfox-emiliafox-harrogate-royalhall-yorkshire |title=Fox family actors return to great-grandfather's glittering Yorkshire hall |date=4 May 2012 |work=The Guardian|author=Martin Wainwright}} and provided affordable social housing. He also built a water gas plant to provide the main street of Harrogate with some of the earliest street lighting. Eventually he became Mayor of Harrogate for three successive years (1890–92), a record never equalled since.Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes: Grand Lodge of England He was a JP (Justice of the Peace) for both Leeds and Harrogate.{{cite web | url =http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/arthur-charles-fox-davies/armorial-families--a-directory-of-gentlemen-of-coat-armour-hci/page-125-armorial-families--a-directory-of-gentlemen-of-coat-armour-hci.shtml| title= Armorial Families| accessdate=7 September 2011 }}
Around 1890, he invited the Croatian artist Vlaho Bukovac to stay at Grove House and paint a series of family portraits. He collected many of Bukovac's other paintings but the collection was dispersed in an auction in 1911. The most important of all his purchases was the huge 'Suffer the Little Children', shown at the Paris Salon in 1888, which the Fox family later presented to St. Robert's church in Harrogate.{{cite web |url=http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/exhibitions/bukovac/samsonfox.asp |title=Vlaho Bukovac and Samson Fox |publisher=Liverpool museums |accessdate=7 September 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110801232553/http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/exhibitions/bukovac/samsonfox.asp |archive-date=1 August 2011}}
In 1892-1894 he provided most of the funds (£45,000, in two donations) to build the Royal College of Music in London, and a bust of him has a prominent place in the entrance hall.
Personal life
Fox married Mary Anne Slinger in Leeds in 1861. They had four children. At the 1889 wedding of his eldest daughter Clara Louisa to engineer Bernal Bagshawe, Dan Leno was paid the then unheard of sum of £100 to entertain the guests and the grounds of Grove House were thrown open to the people of Harrogate. After the death of his first wife in 1895, he remarried in 1899, to Annie Louise Baxter.
He died in Walsall, Staffordshire, in 1903.{{cite journal |year=1904 |title=Obituary. Samson Fox |journal=Minutes of the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers |volume=155 |pages=430–431 |doi=10.1680/imotp.1904.17933|doi-access= }} The King sent Harrogate a telegram of condolence.{{cite news|url= http://www.harrogateadvertiser.net/bygoneharrogate/The-Mayor-who39s-many-inventions.3899991.jp|title= The Mayor whose many inventions made him his millionaire fortune |work= Harrogate Advertiser|date= 17 March 2008|accessdate= 7 September 2011}} He left an estate valued at £156,722 (equivalent to £{{formatnum:{{Inflation|UK|156722|1903|r=0}}}} in {{Inflation-year|UK}}{{Inflation-fn|UK|df=y}}).{{cite news|date=25 January 1904 |title=Wills|work=The Times |pages=5}}
In 1891 Samson Fox was granted Arms by the College of Arms, London:Harleian Society's Grantees of Arms
Arms: Argent a representation of a corrugated boiler-flue fesseways proper between two foxes courant Gules each holding in their mouth a trefoil slipped Vert.
Crest: A representation of a corrugated boiler-flue as in the Arms and thereupon a fox Gules resting the dexter paw upon a trefoil slipped Vert.
Motto: Forti Nihil Difficile. (To the brave, nothing is difficult.)
Family
His son, Arthur William Fox, married Hilda Hanbury, sister of actress Lily Hanbury. His grandson Robin Fox was the head of the Fox acting dynasty, making Samson Fox great-grandfather to screen actors Edward Fox OBE, James Fox OBE, and film and theatre producer Robert Fox, great-great-grandfather to English actresses Emilia Fox, Lydia Fox and to actors Freddie Fox, Laurence Fox and Jack Fox.
Samson Fox in popular culture
Fox was the subject of the play, The Man who Captured Sunlight, written by Gavin Collinson and performed by North of Watford and the Harrogate Amateur Dramatic Society{{Cite web |author=Staff Writer |date=2022-09-20 |title=Original New Stage Play, The Man Who Captured Sunlight, Puts Spotlight on Famous Fox Dynasty |url=https://theatreweekly.com/original-new-stage-play-the-man-who-captured-sunlight-puts-spotlight-on-famous-fox-dynasty/ |access-date=2025-01-08 |website=Theatre Weekly |language=en-GB}} at The Royal Hall in Harrogate on 23 September 2022. It was directed by Sian Murray{{Cite web |title=Samson Fox: The Man Who Captured Sunlight {{!}} RHS |url=https://royalhistsoc.org/calendar/samson-fox-the-man-who-captured-sunlight/ |access-date=2025-01-08 |website=royalhistsoc.org}} and produced by sisters Ann and Clair Challenor-Chadwick{{Cite web |date=2022-09-11 |title='An Elon Musk quality to him': Actor Freddie Fox's Bradford great great grandad |url=https://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/21260931.bradford-inventor-samuel-fox-ancestor-acting-dynasty-family/ |access-date=2025-01-08 |website=Bradford Telegraph and Argus |language=en}}{{Cite web |date=2022-07-20 |title=The story of the man 'who captured sunlight', former Mayor of Harrogate Samson Fox, who is focus of a new play |url=https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/heritage-and-retro/heritage/the-story-of-the-man-who-captured-sunlight-philanthropist-and-former-mayor-of-harrogate-samson-fox-3768630 |access-date=2025-01-08 |website=Yorkshire Post |language=en}} at Cause UK Public Relations.{{Cite web |last=Times |first=Yorkshire |title=Fox Family To Descend On Harrogate |url=https://yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/Fox-Family-To-Descend-On-Harrogate |access-date=2025-01-08 |website=yorkshiretimes.co.uk}}{{Cite web |date=2022-09-26 |title=The Man Who Captured Sunlight Samson Fox Premiere {{!}} Cause UK |url=https://www.causeuk.com/the-man-who-captured-sunlight-samson-fox-premiere/ |access-date=2025-01-08 |website=www.causeuk.com |language=en-GB}} The premier was attended by Freddie Fox{{Cite web |last=Nugent |first=Helen |date=2024-06-01 |title=The Man Who Captured Sunlight: actor Freddie Fox talks about his great, great grandfather |url=https://www.northernsoul.me.uk/the-man-who-captured-sunlight-actor-freddie-fox-talks-about-his-great-great-grandfather/ |access-date=2025-01-08 |website=Northern Soul |language=en-GB}} and his mother Joanna David.{{Cite web |date=2022-08-31 |title=Actor Freddie Fox to attend Harrogate premiere of play about 'forgotten' ancestor |url=https://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/20848461.freddie-fox-attend-premiere-play-forgotten-ancestor/ |access-date=2025-01-08 |website=York Press |language=en}}{{cite news |last1=Chalmers |first1=Graham |title=Tributes after death of Harrogate's greatest historian |url=https://www.harrogateadvertiser.co.uk/news/people/tributes-after-death-of-harrogates-greatest-historian-3747587 |access-date=25 September 2022 |work=Harrogate Advertiser |date=28 June 2022}}{{cite news |title=Fox Family To Descend On Harrogate |url=https://www.yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/Fox-Family-To-Descend-On-Harrogate |access-date=25 September 2022 |work=Yorkshire times |date=26 August 2022}}{{cite news |last1=Hammond |first1=Grace |title=The story of the man 'who captured sunlight' - philanthropist and former Mayor of Harrogate Samson Fox |url=https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/heritage-and-retro/heritage/the-story-of-the-man-who-captured-sunlight-philanthropist-and-former-mayor-of-harrogate-samson-fox-3768630 |access-date=25 September 2022 |work=Yorkshire Post |date=20 July 2022}}{{Cite web |date=2022-09-23 |title=Harrogate Mayor and Freddie Fox pay respects to Samson Fox at Royal Hall stage play - Harrogate Convention Centre |url=https://www.harrogateconventioncentre.co.uk/press-releases/harrogate-mayor-and-freddie-fox-pay-respects-to-samson-fox-at-royal-hall-stage-play |access-date=2025-01-08 |website=www.harrogateconventioncentre.co.uk |language=en}} and raised money for the Royal Hall Restoration Trust in memory of historian Malcolm Neesam.
Edward Fox and Freddie Fox were also advisors to the project.{{Cite news |last=Harvey |first=Chris |date=2022-08-27 |title=‘Cancelling people is inhuman and stupid’: Edward and Freddie Fox on their disruptive relatives |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/theatre/what-to-see/cancelling-people-inhuman-stupid-edward-freddie-fox-disruptive/?msockid=3e5737f5505f6c1800b0242c51e46dda |access-date=2025-01-08 |work=The Telegraph |language=en-GB |issn=0307-1235}}
References
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{{Robin Fox family tree}}
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Category:Knights of the Legion of Honour
Category:Engineers from Bradford
Category:English industrialists
Category:English justices of the peace
Category:People associated with the Royal College of Music