Charles Fox (engineer)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sir Charles Fox (1810-1874) was a civil engineer in Derby, England, in the nineteenth century. His work focused on railways, railway stations and bridges.

[edit] Life and work

Born on 11 March 1810, he was the son of an eminent surgeon and initially trained to follow his father's career. He was ariticled to his brother's practice and prepared apparatus for the latter's lectures to the Mechanic's Institute.

This interest in mechanical devices led him to an interest in the new profession of railway engineering.

In 1831 he obtained employment with Messrs. Fawcett, Preston & Co., in Liverpool and he joined John Ericsson as a pupil and assistant. He was involved in the construction of "Novelty" and drove it in the Rainhill Trials.

He acquired a taste for locomotive driving, and was employed on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, being present at its opening.

One of his earliest inventions, patented in 1832, was the railway switch, which superseded the sliding rail, used up to that time.

He then became an Assistant Manager on the London and Birmingham Railway and read a paper on skew arches to the Royal Institution. He was also a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers from 1838 until his death, and a founder member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers from 1856 to 1871.

After five years, in 1836, he joined Joseph Bramah to form the company Bramah, Fox and Co., which, when Bramah retired, became Fox, Henderson and Co., of London, Smethwick, and Renfrew. In 1837 Herbert Spencer, whose father George Spencer had been Fox's tutor when young, joined him as an assistant engineer.

One of the company's first major commissions was designing the roof over Euston Station.

The company specialised in railway infrastructure, experimenting with components for suspension and girder bridges, with Fox reading a paper before the Royal Society in 1865. It also produced great numbers of railway wheels. Fox was also responsible for the introduction of railway turnouts (switches in American usage, points in the UK).

Fox and Henderson's expertise with structural ironwork led Joseph Paxton to invite them to build the Crystal Palace for the Great Exhibition of 1851. Due to its innovative modular design and construction techniques, it was ready in nine months For their work, Fox, Cubitt and Paxton were knighted. After the exhibition they were employed by the Crystal Palace Company to move it to Sydenham.

In 1857 he left the company to practise as a consultant with two of his sons, Charles and Francis. As such he engineered the approach to London Victoria with the widening of the bridge over the Thames. This included high-level lines at Battersea for the London and Brighton Railway, the London, Chatham and Dover Railway, and the London and South Western Railway.

He died at Blackheath on 14 June 1874, at the age of sixty-four.