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Samuel Fox and Company


Samuel Fox and Company or "Fox's" was a company operating a major steel complex built in the Upper Don Valley at , near Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England.

Samuel Fox bought a disused corn mill close by the centre of the town in 1842 and made alterations so that he could produce wire for the manufacture of textile pins. Within 6 years the business began to manufacture wire for umbrella frames and he developed his own variant, the “Paragon” in 1851. Expansion continued and by the mid-1860s furnaces and rolling mills had been built and the production of railway lines and springs begun.

Road transport in the area was difficult and with larger products being manufactured a new outlet was required. In the 1870s a short branch line was built to link the works with the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway at Deepcar. This was known as the which was a subsidiary of the main company until the early 1990s. The line is still open (2016) and handles regular traffic to and from the works.

Samuel Fox & Company joined with Steel, Peech and Tozer of Rotherham and Scunthorpe-based Appleby-Frodingham Steel Company to form the United Steel Companies after the First World War. Products from various sites were coordinated, each works specialising in a particular range. At Stocksbridge they specialised special steels, particularly the various grades of stainless steel.

In 1935, the company provided a pair of stainless steel foxes to the London and North Eastern Railway which were used to decorate the sides of their new Class A4 locomotive no. 2512 Silver Fox.

The iconic stainless steel Fox weather vane was made by Trevor Faulkner ARCA FRBS, his first commission, whilst he was a student at the Royal College of Art in the 1950s. Trevor Faulkner grew up in Stocksbridge and family members worked at Samuel Fox.


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