John Hick (2 July 1815 – 2 February 1894) was an esteemed English industrialist, art collector and Conservative Party politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1868 to 1880, he is associated with the improvement of steam-engines for cotton mills and the work of his firm Hick, Hargreaves and Co. universal in countries where fibre was spun or fabrics woven.
Family Hick was the eldest son of Benjamin Hick (1790–1842), a civil and mechanical engineer responsible for improvements to the steam-engine, and his wife Elizabeth Routledge (1783–1826), daughter of William Routledge of Elvington Yorkshire. Elizabeth's brother and Hick's uncle, Joshua Routledge (1773–1829) also an engineer living in Bolton, designed the Engineer's Improved Slide Rule and patented improvements to the Rotary steam engine.
Education and early career Educated at a private school near Alderley, Cheshire and Bolton Grammar School where he received a commercial and classical education, Hick entered Benjamin Hick's Soho Works following school and from a young age, management of the Bolton engineering firm Benjamin Hick & Sons in partnership with his father during 1833.
About 1839, 'John Hick Jr' was awarded the silver medal by the Society of Arts for his novel invention of an expanding mandrel for turning lathes, it was an adaptation of a principle developed by Marc Brunel for pulley block manufacture at Portsmouth and received the praise of three eminent engineers; Bryan Donkin, Joshua Field and John Rennie. He was a member of the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church in England and Wales in 1841.
During 1842, Hick was awarded a second silver medal by the Society of Arts for his invention of an Ellipsograph; conceived in 1840, the device provided a simple and accurate solution for drawing ellipsoid forms of various proportions. He received further praise from James Nasmyth, William Fairbairn, Joseph Whitworth, and amongst others, Charles Holtzapffel, Chairman of the Committee of Mechanics. Models of both devices were placed in the Society's repository. The ellipsograph and a diagrammatic model in wood of Hick's rotary engine produced in 1843 are held in the Science Museum collection.
Following their father's sudden death in September 1842, John and his youngest brother William (1820–1844) continued in the family business, while brother Benjamin (1818–1845) remained with George Forrester and Company. Benjamin also presented to the Society of Arts; in March 1844, with Benjamin Bond Cabbell in the chair, he outlined the ground breaking design published in October 1843, for his improved double-cylinder marine steam engine fitted to the PS Helen MacGregor. John was elected a Town councillor on 1 November 1844, serving three terms of three years until 1853 however, William who supervised the installation of their father's two-cyclinder beam engine at Temple Works, died of Tuberculosis on 23 November at Highfield House, the family home in Great Bolton; tragically Benjamin's death followed at Southport on 20 November 1845.
With his eldest sister Mary (1813–1878) in a position to help, Mary's husband was trusted to be a stable partner with the remaining capital to purchase the business from her father's estate and with the endorcement of the trustee bankers, Thomas Lever Rushton (1810–1883) and Robert Sharpe Barlow (–1858), John, who was also an executor, became senior partner in the family business with his brother-in-law John Hargreaves Jr (1800–1874) during 1845, he joined the Institution of Civil Engineers and Society of Arts in the same year. Hargreaves' youngest brother William (1821–1889) entered the partnership two years later. The family business would eventually become Hick, Hargreaves & Co.
During this period about 1845, John produced a 1:12 scale model of a high pressure two-cylinder design for a horizontal saw-mill engine, now displayed at the Institute of Mechanical Engineers; he was a founder and member from 1847 until 1852, and contributed a paper to the institute in 1849 on a friction clutch for connecting and disconnecting the driving power with shafts and machinery. A B. Hick & Son, 1:12 scale patent model of disconnecting apparatus, for screw propellers, c. 1855 is held in the Science Museum marine engines collection.
Following January 1847 Hick transferred his allegance from Bolton Athenaeum to Bolton Church Institute, later becoming Church Warden for James Slade and a Governor of Bolton Grammar School.
Marriage John Hick married Margaret Bashall (1824–1872), eldest daughter of industrialist William Bashall, partner in Bashall & Boardman of Farington Lodge, near Preston, at Penwortham Parish Church, Lancashire on 24 June 1846, they raised four daughters.
Following Margaret Hick's death 18 July 1872, Hick married the sister of his son-in-law, Rebecca Maria Ashworth (1838–1908), eldest daughter of Edmund Ashworth JP (1800–1881) of Egerton Hall on 16 December 1874 at Holy Trinity Church, Clapham; the couple were married by Margaret Hick's cousin and brother-in-law Reverend William Bashall (1830–1902), Vicar of Deane, Lancashire, by special licence from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Archibald Tait. Edmund Ashworth was a cotton manufacturer, proprietor of E. Ashworth & Sons and Egerton Mill, founder member of the Anti-Corn Law League with his brother Henry Ashworth (1794–1880) JP, in association with John Bright and Richard Cobden (Henry Ashworth's brother-in-law), and supporter of reforming, anti-slavery and peace organisations. The Ashworths are both thought to have been Oswald Millbank in Benjamin Disraeli's novel Coningsby. The two families (Hick and Ashworth) were linked by marriage in 1868 when Hick's first child and eldest daughter Margaret (1847–1929) married Edmund Ashworth Jr (1833–1901). The "highly respected" Reverend Bashall retired to the position of curate at St Barnabas church, Addison Road, Kensington from about 1876 remaining in the area until his death, 1902.
The Great Exhibition
1851 saw the Crystal Palace Exhibition in Hyde Park; early in 1850 Mayor of Bolton, Thomas Lever Rushton was appointed chairman of a committee to organise the town's efforts toward the Exhibition and presented as a Local Commissioner to Prince Albert at St James's Palace 18 March 1850.
While the family business of Benjamin Hick & Son displayed machinery and engineering models in the Crystal Palace, John Hick also sat as a United Kingdom Juror with the notable figures of Wilhelm Engerth, William Fairbairn, John Farey, Henry Maudslay (1822–1899), grandson of Henry Maudslay, Rev. Henry Moseley, Robert Napier and others for Class V. Machines for Direct Use, Including Carriages, Railway and Naval Mechanism. Condition 6. of the Exhibition's Decisions Regarding Juries restricted jurors from competing for prizes in the class to which they were appointed; prizes could not be awarded to the individual or the companies the Juror represented.
In 1855, Hick exhibited two pieces from his collection of artworks: The Stag Hunt and Lady Jane Grey and Roger Ascham by John Callcott Horsley in the Fine Art Division of the Exposition Universelle (1855) alongside his father-in-law William Bashall who presented The Madrigal, also by Horsley. Hick and Bashall used the same pair again for the 1857 Art Treasures Exhibition in Manchester with Cupid and Psyche by Benjamin West PRA and Crossing the Brook by Paul Falconer Poole.
Hick was a force behind the movement that led to the formation of the 27th Lancashire Rifle Volunteers from the Bolton area, he was offered command, but declined; The Regiment was formed on 15 November 1859 following tensions between the United Kingdom and France and the out break of war between France and the Austrian Empire during April of the same year. William Gray MP JP (1814–1895) and former Mayor of Bolton became Lieutenant Colonel 1 January 1861; John Hick's nephew Benjamin Hick (1845–1882), manager in Hick, Hargreaves & Co, was made a Captain 16 March 1872, resigning his commission about four years later 23 February 1876.
Bolton Iron and Steel Company In 1860, partners in B. Hick & Son, John Hick and William Hargreaves joined Thomas Lever Rushton's brother-in-law Henry Sharp as partners in Sharp and Eckersley, formerly Rushton and Eckersley before Rushton's retirement from the firm in 1859. The three partners Sharp, Hick and Hargreaves formed the Bolton Iron & Steel Company; situated next door to Rothwell's Union Foundry (on the site of Bolton's old bus station) the company supplied basic metals required by the major manufacturers in the area. Bessemer steel making began about 1860 – four six-ton Bessemer converters were installed during the 1860s, and experiments with the Sieman's open-hearth process began in 1867. Rolling, casting and forging equipment was installed, its products included steel deck beams for ships and sheet metal for shovels, during 1865 Bolton Iron & Steel cast the largest anvil block made in England, weighing 210 tons. By 1869 the company was making open hearth steel and manufacturing steam hammers to the design of Francis Webb. Hick's nephew, Benjamin became a shareholder following incorporation on 9 June 1876.
About 1861 society painter Francis Grant produced portraits of John Hick and his wife Margaret, both works eventually hung together in the family home at Mytton Hall. Between 1860 and 1865 a studio portrait photograph of Hick by Maull and Polyblank was published as part of a series of 58 Victorian scientists, engineers, explorers etc. Hick was an associate of Bolton engineer, artist and photographer Reuben Mitchell (1812–1895), and pursued his own interest in photography; a liberal patron of the fine artsDebretts House of Commons and the Judicial Bench 1870 he was a supporter of Copley Fielding, William Powell Frith, Patrick Nasmyth, Samuel Prout, Edward Matthew Ward and others; the engineer and artist James Nasmyth described John Hick as an "excellent friend".
Now a Justice of the Peace for the Borough of Bolton and Salford Hundred, he sat again as a Juror for the 1862 International Exhibition in Class VIII, Machinery in General with others including his Swiss brother-in-law Louis Rudolf Bodmer, French Vice President of the exhibition M. Michel Chevalier and President of the Institute of Civil Engineers John Hawkshaw.
In March 1862, Hick delivered 2 lectures on self help to the Holy Trinity Working Men's Association, Bolton. Samuel Smiles notes that Hick embodied a personal account prepared for him by James Nasmyth. In the same year Hick became warden for St Peter's church Belmont, Lancashire and maintained a flock of 'hoggets' from his estate at Hill Top.
Hick wrote a history of Timothy Hackworth's locomotive Sans Pareil and presented the restored engine to the Patent Office Museum (now the Science Museum) in 1864, he also photographed William M. Gowland for Bennett Woodcroft. Gowland was driver of Hackworth's Royal George and driver of Sans Pareil at the Rainhill Trials.
Sans Pareil was previously owned by Hick's brother-in-law and eventual business partner John Hargreaves Jr (1800–1874) who had the engine fully repaired and running on the Bolton and Leigh Railway in 1837. Sans Pareil is now housed at the National Railway Museum's Shildon Locomotion Museum annexe.
In 1867, Hick first published a paper, reprinted from The Engineer, 1 June 1866, Experiments on the Friction of the Leather Collars in Hydraulic Presses, that expanded on the work of Dr William Rankine, describing an important series of experiments carried out using a joint invention of Hick and Robert Lüthy (1840–1884), a Swiss engineer, initially employed by Hick as a draughtsman and inventor of a hydraulic cotton packing press. Hick's father was the inventor of the self tightening collar, used universally in hydraulic presses.
Parliament