13 Facts About Samson Fox

Samson Fox, JP was an English engineer, industrialist and philanthropist.

Samson Fox was born at Bowling, Bradford, Yorkshire, England, the son of Jonas Fox, a mill worker, by his marriage to Sarah Pearson, 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 1887, Samson Fox applied his knowledge and experience in forging metal to building forged pressed iron railway undercarriages and trucks.

Brady's sales techniques soon succeeded, and in 1888 the Samson Fox Solid Pressed Steel Company was incorporated to manufacture the trucks in Joliet, Illinois.

Samson 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.

Samson Fox bought and extended Grove House in Harrogate, a Yorkshire spa town, and became a benefactor to the local community.

Samson Fox provided Harrogate with its first steam fire engine, built the Grove Road School opposite his home, funded the Royal Hall, and provided affordable social housing.

Samson Fox built a water gas plant to provide the main street of Harrogate with some of the earliest street lighting.

Samson Fox was a JP for both Leeds and Harrogate.

Samson Fox collected many of Bukovac's other paintings but the collection was dispersed in an auction in 1911.

In 1891 Samson Fox was granted Arms by the College of Arms, London:.

Samson 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 at The Royal Hall in Harrogate on 23 September 2022.