Charles Fox (civil and railway engineer)
Sir Charles Fox ( born March 11, 1810 in Derby, United Kingdom, † June 11, 1874 in Blackheath, London ) was an English engineer and entrepreneur. He specialized in railways, railway stations and bridges and acquired by the construction of the Crystal Palace a great reputation.
Life
Fox was the youngest of four sons of Dr. Francis Fox. First, he should like his father to pursue a medical career, but at the age of 19 he went to John Ericsson to Liverpool and worked with him and John Braithwaite at the Novelty locomotive, which he of in the conference organized by the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Race was allowed to drive Rainhill. He took pleasure to drive locomotives and was employed by the Liverpool and Manchester Railway as a train driver, a then coveted and well-paid position.
In 1830 he married Mary Brook House, the second daughter of Joseph Brookhouse, with whom he had three sons and a daughter.
One of his first inventions was a railroad switch. It was patented in 1832 and replaced the previously common rail.
Robert Stephenson appointed him in 1834 as one of the engineers for the construction of the London and Birmingham Railway, where he was later than bauleitender engineer (resident engineer) responsible for the Watfordtunnel and the gradient of Camden Town to Euston Station, on the trains by a continuous rope had to be pulled and stationary steam engines. For the station he designed the 61 m long roof of a parking hall. During this time, Fox wrote a treatise on the construction of oblique arches, which he could recite in front of the Institute of British Architects. 1837 Herbert Spencer, whose father George Spencer Fox was had been ' tutor, his assistant engineer.
Fox, Henderson & Co.
Fox was taken in 1838 by Francis Bramah in founded by his father, Joseph Bramah company that worked as Bramah, Fox & Co. then. After Bramahs death in 1841 he took John Henderson on in the company, which had then as Fox, Henderson & Co. changed its name and operations in London, Smethwick, and Renfrew. The company specialized in railway equipment, bicycles, bridges, roofs, cranes, boilers and track superstructure, and also produced components for truss bridges and suspension bridges, in 1865 delivered a lecture before the Royal Society on the Fox.
The company was responsible for the construction of many important railway station roofs such as those of Liverpool Tithebarn Street ( 1849-50 ) Bradford Exchange ( 1850), Paddington and Birmingham New Street.
Shortly before the Great Exhibition in London in 1851 succeeded Fox and Henderson, in just nine months to implement Joseph Paxton's design of a large-scale exhibition hall of cast iron and glass work plans and molds and the huge Crystal Palace finish in time. Henderson became ill shortly before the opening ceremony and fell into oblivion, but Fox was for this exceptional performance as well as Paxton and ennobled with the supervision commissioned William Cubitt on 23 October 1851. After the exhibition, Fox built the palace again and built him a second time for the Crystal Palace Company in Sydenham, today's district Crystal Palace.
The company also continued in the railway and bridge construction, as at the Medway Bridge in Rochester (Kent ) for the Thames and Medway Railway and a bridge over the Trent for the Great Northern Railway, on three bridges over the Thames, many bridges the Great Western Railway and a swing bridge over the River Shannon in Ireland. Large cast iron hall roofs were built for the railway stations in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Perth and Carlisle. Fox also worked for the railways Cork and Bandon, Thames and Medway, Portadown and Dungannonund East Kent.
Fox, Brunel and Robert Stephenson were enthusiastic about the idea of a Channel Tunnel and prompted initial investigations on both sides of the Channel.
In France, Fox, Henderson & Co. on portions of the railway line Paris -Lyon and Lyon -Geneva and worked in Germany for the Taunus Railway. Was In Berlin, the company was involved in the construction of the Berlin Water Works Company, also deals in the ports of Kiel and Korsør in Denmark works, as well as the draining of the Haarlemmermeer and helped build the Nicholas Chain Bridge in Kiev and the Széchenyi Chain Bridge in Budapest. The acquired on bad terms contracts for a dock in Paris and for the railway line Roskilde Korsør in Denmark topped the financial limits of the company that eventually went bankrupt.
Sir Charles Fox & Sons
After the collapse of his company Charles Fox founded in the fall of 1857 the engineering firm Sir Charles Fox & Son with his eldest, then 17 -year-old son Douglas Fox, who therefore had to give up the intention to study at Trinity College. One of the first jobs was an opinion on the safety of the built by John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge Niagara Falls, the first suspension bridge for the railways. The following year he was appointed consulting engineer for the Cape Town Railway & Dock Company, who prepared the construction of the first railway in South Africa.
After a serious accident in 1861 and his second son Francis was included in the engineer's office, which appeared under the name of Sir Charles Fox & Sons since 1865.
Fox & Sons were commissioned by the Government Railways of the Colony of Queensland and recommended a narrow-gauge railway for the Southern and Western Railway of Queensland, which was also carried out, where they were ordered for two sections to the construction engineer. In Canada they had the supervision for the construction of 640 km of track for the Toronto & Nipissing Railway Company. Fox has been an expert for narrow gauge railways. Together with George Berkley he built the first narrow gauge railway in India.
Fox & Sons also planned bridges and lines in Battersea for the London Brighton and South Coast Railway London, Chatham and Dover Railway and London and South Western Railway and the introduction to Victoria Station in London, including the widening of the Grosvenor Bridge (Victoria Railway Bridge ) over the River Thames.
Fox died in 1874 at the age of 64 years at his home in Blackheath and was buried in Nunhead Cemetery.
His sons continued the engineering firm continues under the name Douglas Fox & Partners. Later it became known as Freeman Fox & Partners and is now active in many countries as Hyder Consulting.
Honors
Fox was a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, a founding member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers from 1856 to 1871 and member of the Royal Asiatic Society and the Royal Geographical Society since 1838.