In the second of her series of great Harrogate scientists and innovators, Ophelia looks at perhaps the most famous of them all, Samson Fox (pictured above).  

We all complain about the lack of sunlight in the north of England, especially during the dark winter months. Yet most of us rarely stop to think about how remarkable modern lighting really is. With the flick of a switch, we can illuminate entire buildings, streets and cities in an instant. For much of human history, however, darkness was a far greater obstacle. Homes relied on candles and oil lamps, while businesses and public spaces were limited by expensive and often unreliable forms of lighting. 

One of the people who was pivotal in bringing us into the light was engineer and industrialist Samson Fox. Through his pioneering work on water-gas technology, Fox played a role in the Victorian energy revolution that helped illuminate cities around the world. 

Yet his influence on Harrogate extended far beyond engineering. A prominent philanthropist and civic leader, Fox would later serve as Mayor of Harrogate and help shape the town we know today.

Born into a modest family in Bradford, Fox displayed an entrepreneurial spirit from an early age. Ambitious, hardworking and naturally inquisitive, he established his own toolmaking business before the age of 30. 

His fortunes changed dramatically in 1877 when he invented the corrugated boiler flue, a design that made boilers safer and more efficient. Widely adopted in steam engines and industrial machinery, it brought Fox international recognition and laid the foundations for the success that would eventually allow him to settle in Harrogate. 

By the end of the century, his inventions were being used across the globe, establishing him as one of Britain's most successful engineers. 

Having made his fortune, Fox could easily have called it a day. Instead, he turned his attention to one of Victorian Britain's greatest challenges: providing reliable and affordable energy for a rapidly industrialising nation (candles just weren’t quite cutting it anymore). 

Although coal gas lighting did exist, the technology was expensive, inefficient and potentially dangerous. Fox was the man with the solution: water gas.  

Water gas technology involved the production of combustible fuel by passing steam (H₂O) over red-hot carbon, such as coal or coke. Fox's belief in the technology, originating in America, was so strong that he was willing to put both his reputation and fortune behind it. That faith led him to Grove House in Harrogate, where he first lit his own home using water gas, making Grove House, by most accounts, the first house in the world to be lit this way. 

He went on to build a town-scale plant in the grounds that gave Harrogate's main street some of the earliest water-gas street lighting in Britain. In other words, one of the most important energy technologies of the Victorian era was being developed not in London, Manchester or New York, but on what is now Skipton Road. 

From this unlikely corner of North Yorkshire, Fox helped demonstrate that water gas could be produced on a commercial scale, paving the way for its adoption in towns and cities across Britain and beyond – a significant breakthrough at a time when electricity was still in its infancy. 

The venture however, wasn't without controversy – it struggled financially, and a public fraud accusation from Three Men in a Boat author and columnist Jerome K Jerome in 1892 led Fox into a libel case – a dispute which Fox won, and which was later dramatised in the 2022 Harrogate play The Man Who Captured Sunlight. 

Fox also became Mayor of Harrogate in 1889 for three terms running – a record never since equalled – funding the Royal Hall and giving the town its first steam fire engine. 

In many ways, Fox was asking the same question that energy scientists are asking today. Victorian Britain needed a better way to power its rapidly growing cities, just as the modern world needs cleaner and more sustainable sources of energy. 

While water gas, hydrogen fuel and fusion reactors rely on very different technologies, they all represent attempts to solve the same problem: how do we provide enough energy for society without running out of fuel and money? 

Step forward the next Samson Fox...