Clive Foxell

Clive Arthur Peirson Foxell CBE (27 February 1930 – 30 July 2016) was an English physicist who pioneered the use of fibre-optic technology and was an author on the history of the Metropolitan Railway about which he produced a number of books.

Early life Clive Foxell was born in Harrow on 27 February 1930, the only child of Arthur and Lillian Foxell. He was educated at Harrow High School and Acton Technical College. He married Shirley Morris, a librarian, in Chesham in 1956, and they had a daughter Elizabeth.

Career Towards the end of the Second World War, Foxell joined the electronics company GEC as an apprentice at its research laboratory in Wembley. While there, he also studied for a BSc degree at the University of London, which he received in 1954. Early in his career, he worked on lighting effects for several films, including Hamlet (1948) and Moby Dick (1956). He researched the use of semiconductors and silicon diodes and was influenced by Cyril Hilsum, who made Britain's first semiconductor laser. In 1967, he appeared with Hilsum on BBC One television's The New Electronics demonstrating the equipment. He was appointed Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1990.

Railways Railways were an interest of Foxell from childhood, when he became aware of the Metropolitan Line while cycling to and from school near Chorleywood Common in Hertfordshire. He got a summer job as a cleaner at Neasden LNER locomotive sheds, where the other workers were mainly Italian prisoners of war.

Selected publications Chesham Shuttle: The Story of a Metropolitan Branch Line. Clive Foxell, 1996. Chesham Branch Album. Clive Foxell, 1998. Memories of the Met and GC Joint Line. Clive Foxell, 2002. St. Mary's Church, Chesham: An Illustrated Short History. Clive Foxell, 2002. (With Shirley Foxell) Rails to Metro-Land. Clive Foxell, 2005. The Metropolitan Line: London's First Underground Railway. The History Press, 2010. The Ten Cinemas of Chesham. Clive Foxell, 2010. The Lowndes' Chesham Estate: The Early Photographs. Clive Foxell, 2011. Images of 150 Years of the Metropolitan Railway. The History Press, 2012. Echoes of the 'Met Line. Clive Foxell, 2014. Shadows of the Metropolitan Railway. Clive Foxell, 2015.