Fox supplied burials for cholera victims, food for the starving and helped start the first free school in Britain for poor adults.

Fox was renowned for serving all in strict order and tales are told of him turning back those who thought themselves too important to queue.

Fox's premises were run on strict principles even having separate men's and ladies counters, with staff of the appropriate gender.

[3] Samuel Fox is credited with helping to start the first 'adult school'[6] in 1798 in partnership with a Methodist named William Singleton.

[7] William Singleton, a Methodist, originally started the school, but it was Fox and the staff from his grocer's shop that maintained it.

[1] The school grew to include men, but it was said that Fox was specifically interested in improving adult education.

Fox conducted lessons for three mornings a week for students of more advanced arithmetic and he would fund some to go to become teachers themselves.

The burial of their bodies was a major problem as one cemetery was full and the other had local objectors who were afraid of the effect of cholera victims on their families health.

Fox allowed for the land to be consecrated as St Annes Cemetery in 1835[9] by William Howley, the Archbishop of Canterbury.