Charles Fox (engineer, born 1810)

Sir Charles Fox (1810 to 1874) was an English civil engineer and contractor whose work focused on railways, railway stations and bridges. Born in Derby, he abandoned medical training to be articled to John Ericsson, drove the Novelty locomotive at the Rainhill trials and in 1837 became one of the engineers of Robert Stephenson's London and Birmingham Railway, where he patented railway points in 1838. His firm, Fox, Henderson and Company, made ironwork for stations such as Paddington and Birmingham New Street and built the iron structure of the Crystal Palace for the Great Exhibition of 1851, work for which he was knighted. After the firm went into liquidation in 1856 he founded the consulting practice with his sons that became Freeman Fox and Partners.