[1][2] Fox was born on 2 May 1912, the son of an electrical engineer, and attended Regent Street Polytechnic Technical School and Jesus College, Cambridge.
[5] Fox returned to the Engineering Department at Cambridge four years after graduating, having first served a stint as a technical assistant at Imperial Chemical Industries.
He was a supportive chair, dedicated to financing and furthering the research of others, including the team of Francis Thomas Bacon when they developed the hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell.
[4] He remained in the position until 1959,[2] when poor health forced him to retire,[9] and was succeeded by Peter Victor Danckwerts.
[10] According to The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Fox's poor health was the result of a high stress personality, which led him to "a succession of nervous breakdowns in the early 1950s".