It started in 1868 during the reign of Queen Victoria. Mr Thomas Fox opened a shop in Fore Street in the City of London (later becoming London Wall after the bombing during World War Two when the roads were rebuilt) making and selling umbrellas. 12 years later he sold the shop bearing his name to Samuel Dixon, the grandfather of June Dixon. In the 1880's a major change in the manufacturing process took place with the introduction of the steel umbrella frame invented by Mr Samuel Fox. Up to this time the umbrella frame was made of whalebone. It was in 1848 that Samuel Fox, a wire drawer by trade, started to make solid steel ribs in Stocksbridge, Near Sheffield. The little village of Stocksbridge was practically unheard of at that time. The nearest railway station was Deepcar, a wayside halt on the old Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire railway, about a mile from the works. The name Samuel Fox and Company was not known outside a small number of customers in the fish hook and needle industry. However, he was a master wire drawer and it was this skill in the production of fine quality wire that Fox turned to the production of umbrella ribs. They were not the first steel ribs; it is believed that these were actually of American manufacture. But what was certain is that they were the first satisfactory steel ribs. Samuel Fox continued improving and developing his ribs over the next few years when his son William Henry Fox joined the company around 1913 and around this time adopted the trademark 'Paragon'. Fox released the ribs to the trade and within six months it became the firm's sole production line and remained so until they stopped making frames in this country around 2003 and ceased trading in 2008. After World War I Samuel Dixon's son took over the running of the business which he again expanded and improved the production methods, whilst keeping the very high quality of the merchandise. During the early 1930's he started exporting to Japan, USA and other overseas markets. During World War II the company manufactured flare parachutes which introduced them to the new invention nylon. The Dixon family was quick to realise the advantages of nylon instead of silk and became the first to introduce the material into umbrella covers and they were first shown to the general public in the "Britain Can Make It" exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, 1946. Globally renowned customers are Alfred Dunhill, T M Lewin, Fortnum & Mason, Hackett, Harrods, Turnbull & Asser, Ralph Lauren in the UK, Mitsukoshi, Isetan, Sogo and Tomorrowland in Japan, Paul Stuart, Rain or Shine, Bloomingdale, Barneys in New York and many others all over the world. In 2003 the company name changed to Fox Umbrellas Ltd to remove some of the confusion and to make the company more easily identifiable. On 18th April 2006 they moved into the new purpose built factory with showrooms and offices in Shirley, near Croydon in Surrey. The process of making Fox Umbrellas has changed very little. To obtain the high quality that is require and the customers have come to expect it is still necessary to rely on the skill of hand workers rather than machines and today the quality and attention to detail are still the hallmark of a Fox Umbrella. Fox Umbrellas, with its history and globally renowned reputation for excellence, still exists today albeit with a change of name to Fox Umbrellas Ltd.