William Thompson (boxer) William Thompson (boxer) William Abednego Thompson (11 October 1811 – 23 August 1880) was an English bare-knuckle boxer. Born in Sneinton, Nottingham in 1811, Thompson was one of a set of triplets named Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, after the young men in the Book of Daniel who emerged from the fiery furnace of Babylon. He was the last of 21 children born in the slums between Long Row and Parliament Street. From an early age, Thompson developed well and was noted as having an ability with sports. When he was 15 his father died and William was sent to the
Shadrach Fox Shadrach Fox Shadrach Fox was the ironmaster who preceded Abraham Darby at Coalbrookdale. Shadrach was probably the son of Captain Thomas Fox, who appears in the accounts of Philip Foley in 1669 as buying tough pig iron, In the 1690s, Shadrach was renting the Coalbrookdale ironworks and supplying shot (for cannon) to the Board of Ordnance. He had some dispute with the Company for Making Iron with Pitcoal. His brother Thomas Fox had worked that company as founder near London, casting grenado shells and shot for the Board in 1693, after which Thomas became warden of the Fleet Prison, in