Derby Bygones
Derby engineer was a true pioneer who became known as 'Cast-Iron Man'
Crystal Palace and roofs of Paddington and Waterloo stations were among his projects
Nicola Rippon
Jane GoddardBygones and Feature Writer
A sketch of the Crystal Palace
Derby-born Sir Charles Fox was one of the greatest engineers of the 19th century. Remarkably, two of his sons were similarly gifted and successful.
Born in 1810, Charles was baptised at St Werburgh's Church. He was the youngest son of Wardwick surgeon, Dr Francis Fox, and his wife, Charlotte.
Like his brothers, Charles had seemed destined to enter his father's calling, but a childhood fascination with mechanics led him in an entirely different direction.
He had shown early promise in that field and had made apparatus for his brother Douglas to use during his lectures at the Mechanics' Institution in Wardwick. Eventually he took a post studying with the Swedish-American engineer, John Ericsson in Liverpool.
There he participated in the construction of "Novelty" – an early steam locomotive built by Ericsson and John Braithwaite. The engine was entered in the Rainham Trials of October 1829.
A studio portrait of Sir Charles Fox (Image: Derby Telegraph)
It was the favourite to succeed and initially looked set to fulfil its promise. However, a recurring problem with the boiler caused Ericsson and Braithwaite to withdraw it, although it had been widely considered a viable rival to the Stephenson's Rocket engine.
Fox himself caught the eye of Robert Stephenson, son of George, who offered him a job with his London and Birmingham Railway and, in particular, gave him responsibility for the construction of the Watford Tunnel and the incline over the Regent Canal from Camden Town to Euston.
It proved to be a good appointment. Fox was both imaginative and innovative. In 1832 he patented a new railway track points system known as Fox's Safety Switch, which superseded the sliding rail that had previously been in use.
A drawing of one of Charles Fox's novelty engines (Image: Derby Telegraph)
But even a man with Fox's undoubted skills had to face setbacks. In 1834, while overseeing work on the Watford Tunnel, Fox was called away to Birmingham.
While he was there, part of the tunnel workings collapsed, killing 11 workers. It happened on the Friday morning, just as a team of five bricklayers and six labourers removed woodwork from a gin-shaft prior to it being bricked up.
According to a report in the Buckinghamshire Herald of the time: "Had the appalling event taken place a few hours afterwards, the morning gang would have been at work, and the loss of human life must have been awful in the extreme … When the earth fell a horse and gig were partly buried beneath, and it was with great difficulty the horse was extricated, and it was discovered that the poor animal had sustained much injury."
Sir Charles Fox's house in the Wardwick which was demolished in 1913
A subcontractor, a miner and the inspector of brickwork were among the dead. "All of whom have left wives with large families to bemoan their loss."
Fox hurried back to Watford and, because the surviving labourers refused to get back to work on the project, was forced to complete it with the help of just one ganger.
Eventually, Fox entered a partnership with John Joseph Bramah, and began to manufacture railway and engine components.
He experimented with suspension and girder bridges. When Bramah retired, the company became Fox, Henderson & Co. When Joseph Paxton was planning his Crystal Palace for the Great Exhibition of 1851, Fox's company was the obvious choice to erect it.
Derbyshire men Joseph Paxton and Charles Fox led the grand procession at the State opening of the Great Exhibiton at Crystal Palace in 1851
Thanks to an innovative modular design the entire structure took only nine months to complete. In recognition of its success, both Paxton and Fox were knighted. There were celebrations in Fox's hometown of Derby, too.
In the very year the exhibition opened, Charles's brother Dr Douglas Fox was serving as mayor of the Borough – one of three times he would fill that post. Dr Fox suspected that he had been chosen because of his brother's achievements.
According to the Derby Telegraph: "It fell to the lot of Dr Douglas Fox as Mayor to preside at the dinner given to Sir Charles Fox on his Hyde Park achievement."
After the Exhibition closed, the Crystal Palace Company employed Fox to dismantle the structure, and re-erect it, in enlarged form, at Sydenham Hill – an area now known as Crystal Palace. Derby County would later play in three FA Cup finals there.
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The census of 1851, taken about a month before the opening of the Exhibition, shows Charles and his wife Mary, living in Westbourne Terrace in Paddington, in a large and striking townhouse.
Charles is listed as an "engineer and ironfounder". No less than six servants assisted him and his wife, Mary. Their three sons and one daughter are also living there.
Young Francis would later recall of his father's involvement in the erection of the Crystal Palace: "He became known as the 'Cast-Iron Man'. No one but he was able to design the building as regards its details."
Fox went on to design and construct station roofs at Euston (the first of its kind in the world), Paddington, Waterloo and Birmingham New Street.
In addition, he carried out work for railways across the globe, including the Portadown and Dungannon, the Lyons and Geneva and, with George Berkley, the first narrow-gauge railway in India.
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However, in 1856, work with the Danish Zealand railway resulted in such serious financial losses that the Fox Henderson partnership went into liquidation.
The following year, with his sons Charles Douglas (known as Douglas) and Francis, Charles formed a civil engineering partnership, known as Sir Charles Fox & Sons.
The company went on to construct countless bridges – over the Medway at Rochester, and three bridges over the Thames at Barnes, at Richmond, and at Staines among them. He was the first to adopt the cast-iron caisson for the construction of bridge foundations in rivers.
Fox built high-level lines at Battersea, and the approach to Victoria Station in London, as well as widening Grosvenor Bridge over the Thames from two to seven tracks.
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Charles Fox died at Blackheath on June 14, 1874, aged 64. An editorial in the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers that year remarked that Fox had "the love and respect of all who knew him … it may indeed be said of him that rarely has there been a more generous man or a more tender and affectionate parent".
The Derbyshire Advertiser said: "Derby has lost another of her distinguished sons, whose talents have reflected honour upon the town, and whose name will forever be remembered as one of the worthies of Derbyshire."
One of Sir Charles' last designs was that for the Mersey Railway Tunnel. Douglas, as the older son, had become senior partner of the firm and it was he who directed the tunnel's construction.
Douglas himself was knighted for his work by Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle, after the Mersey Tunnel's official opening by the Prince of Wales in 1886.
The company's extraordinary contribution to engineering design and construction went on unabated.
Under Douglas' guidance it was involved in the construction of the Snowden Mountain Railway and the extension of the Great Central line from Rugby to London, Marylebone Station, the Great Northern and City tube line, Hampstead tube linking Charing Cross with Highgate and Golders Green, as well as the world's first elevated electrical railway – the Liverpool Overhead.
A railway was constructed in Rhodesia, as well as the 500ft-span Victoria Falls Bridge, the Beneguela Railway in Angola and several more in South America. Francis received his own knighthood in 1912 after work on many of the same projects, the Sydney Harbour Bridge and an extension to the London Underground.
As engineer to the Bristol and Exeter Railway he personally designed the so-called Telescopic Bridge at Bridgwater. He was a consultant for the Simplon Tunnel. In 1878 Fox constructed the replacement train shed at Bristol Temple Meads railway station. In something of a departure from the usual projects, he also assisted in the shoring-up of several cathedrals, including Winchester and St Paul's.
When Sir Francis died in 1927, one obituary said: "Doctor Fox and his clever family took such immense interest in every educational movement in our town, and were especially active and solicitous in guiding the infant footsteps of the Derby Mechanics' Institution … the Foxes must have been men of intensely methodical minds."
Sir Charles, Sir Douglas and Sir Francis were, individually and collectively remarkable engineers indeed. Derby should be proud of them.
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