| Fox | Henry Wilson | | | Born at Cavendish Square, London, Aug 18, 1863. He is the son of Wilson Fox, MD, Physician in Ordinary to her late Majesty Queen Victoria was educated at Charterhouse, Marlborough College, University College, Lond, and Trinity College Cambridge, of which he was Exhibitioner and Scholar; BA, Natural Science Tripos. He was called to the Bar, November 29, 1888, and was Equity Scholar of Lincoln's Inn (1888). He was admitted Advocate of the Supreme Court of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope and Advocate of the High Court of Southern Rhodesia in 1894. Mr Wilson Fox, after leaving the Cambridge University, spent some time in the office of Sir Charles Mills, then Agent General to Cape Colony. In 1889 he went out to Johannesburg on the Johannesburg staff of the Consolidated Gold Fields of South Africa. In 1892 he took to journalism, and immediately came to the front as the editor of the South African Mining Journal of Johannesburg. In this capacity he assisted Mr John Hays Hammond in drafting the Rhodesian Mining Laws. This brought him into touch with Mr Cecil Rhodes, and ultimately led to his being appointed Public Prosecutor of Rhodesia in the same year. When the rebellion broke out in 1896-7 in Matabeleland and Mashonaland he carried out the duties of Director of Transport and Commissariat for the Salisbury force with quite exceptional success, under, of course, quite exceptional difficulties, being mentioned in despatches, and wears the medal with clasp. In May, 1897, he returned to England for a holiday, and was unexpectedly offered the appointment in June, 1898, of manager of the Chartered Company, a responsible and arduous position which he still fills, and for which his all round knowledge of mining, finance, law, and South African politics gives him exceptional authority. He took a prominent part in the extraordinarily successful flotation of the Charter Trust and Agency, and represents the Chartered Company on most of the principal Rhodesian directorates, including the following: African Concessions Syndicate, Ltd; Antenior (Matabele) Gold Mines, Ltd; Ayrshire Gold Mine and Lomagunda Railway Company, Ltd; Beatrice (Rhodesia) Company, Ltd; Bonsor Gold Mining Company, Ltd; Charter Trust and Agency, Ltd; Clark's Consolidated, Ltd; Jumbo Gold Mining Company, Ltd; Mashonaland Agency, Ltd; New Rhodesia District Development Company, Ltd Northern Copper (BSA) Company, Ltd; Penhalonga Proprietary Mines, Ltd; Rhodesia Broken Hill Development Company, Ltd; Rhodesia Copper Company, Ltd; Selukwe Gold Mining Company, Ltd; Surprise Gold Mining Company, Ltd; Wanderer (Selukwe) Gold Mines, Ltd; Wankie (Rhodesia) Coal, Railway, and Exploration Company, Ltd; and Willoughby's Consolidated Company, Ltd Mr Wilson Fox has recently come into further public prominence in connection with his great scheme for harnessing the Victoria Falls in the Zambesi for the transmission of power to the Witwatersrand Gold Fields. As the distance is 600 miles as the crow flies, this project on completion will mark an epochal stride in the practice of longdistance transmission of electrical power. The project is supported by some of the greatest minds known to electrical science, among whom may be mentioned Sir Douglas Fox, Sir Charles Metcalfe, Bart., Lord Kelvin, and Mr Arthur Wright, of London; Mr Ralph D Mershon, of New York; Professor Dr G Klingenberg, of the Allgemeine Elektricitats-Gesellschaft, of Berlin; Mons. Andre Blondel, of Paris; Dr Edouard Tissot, of Basle; and other names of worldwide distinction. In financing this vast undertaking the Chartered Company are, it is understood, allied with the powerful electrical and financial groups headed by the Allgemeine Elektricitats-Gesellschaft and the Dresdner Bank. When completed, the transmission of power at low price to Johannesburg should very greatly modify and improve the state of the mining industry on the Rand, as at present the cost of power constitutes the second largest item in the bill of working costs. Mr Wilson Fox has invented and patented a system of hydraulic storage, which, according to the opinions of several of the greatest electrical experts in the world, will revolutionise the practice of long-distance transmission, partly by effecting numerous economies, partly by enabling the transmission lines to run a constant load, and partly by allowing a much larger sale of power from the same supply under the ordinary load factors. Mr Fox is a fervid supporter of the Imperialistic ideals of Mr Cecil Rhodes, and is a fine speaker either on political or commercial subjects, with an unusual hold over public meetings. He is a most popular man in South African circles, and a good sportsman. He represented Cambridge University at lawn tennis in 1885-6, was the chief exponent of the game in South Africa for several years, and still plays for the English championship every year. Golf and shooting are his other principal recreations. He married, on July 19, 1898, the Hon Eleanor B Sclater-Booth, sister of the present Lord Basing, and has a son, born in 1900. | Unknown |
