B. Hick and Sons

ARA (1801–1865) The company's first steam locomotive Soho, named after the works was a goods type, built in 1833 for carrier John Hargreaves. In 1834 an unconventional, gear-driven four-wheeled rail carriage was conceived for Bolton solicitor and banker, Thomas Lever Rushton (1810–1883). The engine was the first 3-cylinder locomotive and its design incorporated turned iron wheel rims with aerodynamic plate discs as an alternative to conventional spokes. The 3-cylinder concept evolved into Hick's experimental horizontal boiler A 2-2-2 locomotive about 1840, adopting the principle features of the vertical boiler engine. The A design appears not to have been put into production. New Orleans and Carrollton for the St. Charles Streetcar Line in New Orleans in 1835 and a second New Orleans for the same line in 1837. A 10 hp stationary engine was supplied to the Carrollton Railroad Company in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, for ironworking purposes, but damaged by fire in 1838. Two tender locomotives Potomak and Louisa were delivered to the Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad and a third, Virginia to the Raleigh and Gaston Railroad in North Carolina during 1836. Between 1837 and 1840 the company subcontracted for Edward Bury and Company, supplying engines to the Midland Counties Railway, London and Birmingham Railway, North Union Railway, Manchester and Leeds Railway and indirectly to the Grand Crimean Central Railway via the London and North Western Railway in 1855. Engines were built for the Taff Vale Railway, Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway, Cheshire, Lancashire and Birkenhead Railway, Chester and Birkenhead Railway, Eastern Counties Railway, Liverpool and Manchester Railway, North Midland Railway, Paris and Versailles Railway and Bordeaux Railway. In 1841 the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway successfully used American Norris locomotives on the notorious Lickey Incline and Hick built three similar locomotives for the line. Between 1844 and 1846 the firm built a number of "long boiler" locomotives with haystack fireboxes and in 1848, four s for the North Staffordshire Railway. In the same year, the company built Chester, probably the earliest known prototype of a 6-wheel coupled } goods locomotive. ==Aerodynamic disc wheel==

3-cylinder steam-carriage and disc wheel from ''Newton's London Journal of Arts and Sciences'', 1836. Benjamin Hick's wheel design was used on a number of Great Western Railway engines including what may have been the world's first streamlined locomotive; an experimental prototype, nicknamed Grasshoper, driven by Brunel at , c.1847. The 10 ft disc wheels from GWR locomotive Ajax were lent to convey the statue of the Duke of Wellington to Hyde Park Corner in London. Hick's patent extended the purpose of the design from the locomotive steam-carriage, '...I do not confine myself to this adaptation. Wheels for carts, waggons, coaches, timber carriages, and for many other uses, may be advantageously constructed on this principle. The forms, dimensions, nature, and strength of material of the naves, discs, and fellies, as well as the mode of uniting the different parts, may be varied, in order to suit the particular purpose for which the wheels are required, and to the wear and tear to which they are liable'. Disc wheels and wheel fairings have been used for armoured cars, aviation, drag racing, Land speed record attempts, Land speed racing, motor racing, motor scooters, motorcycle speedway, wheelchair racing, icetrack cycling, velomobiles and bicycle racing, particularly track cycling, track bikes and time trials. == Engineering drawings ==

, 1974. Hick Hargreaves collection of early locomotive and steam engine drawings Drawings for machinary and fittings 1855-1878, supplied to Waltham Abbey Royal Gunpowder Mills and Woolwich Arsenal are also noted for their quality. The collections are held by Bolton Metropolitan Borough Archives and the Transport Trust, University of Surrey. == Hick, Hargreaves & Co ==

After the death of Benjamin Hick in 1842, the firm continued as Benjamin Hick & Son under the management of his eldest son, John Hick; his second son, Benjamin Jr left the company after a year of its founding for partnership in a Liverpool company about 1834, possibly George Forrester & Co. In 1840 he filed a patent governor for B. Hick and Son using an Egyptian winged motif, that featured on the front page of ''Mechanics' Magazine''. Hick's third and youngest son William (1820–1844) served as an apprentice millwright, engineer in the company from 1834 and a 'fitter' from 1837, he was listed as an iron founder in 1843 with his eldest brother John, but died the next year, nine months after receiving his indentures. In 1845 John Hick took his brother-in-law John Hargreaves Jr (1800–1874) into partnership followed by Hargreaves' youngest brother William (1821–1889) in 1847. John Hargreaves Jr left the firm in April 1850 before buying Silwood Park in Berkshire. steam engine, mill-gear and ornamental column at the Great Exhibition. Photograph 1851 by Claude-Marie Ferrier (1811–1889) from the Reports of the Juries. The following year B. Hick and Son exhibited engineering models and machinery at The Great Exhibition in Class VI. Manufacturing Machines and Tools, including a 6 horse power crank overhead engine and mill-gear driving Hibbert, Platt and Sons' cotton machinery and a 2 hp high-pressure oscillating engine driving a Ryder forging machine. Both engines were modelled in the Egyptian Style. The company received a Council Medal award for its mill gearing, radial drill mandrils and portable forges. The B. Hick & Son London office was at 1 New Broad Street in the City. One of the Great Exhibition models, a 1:10 scale 1840 double beam engine built in the Egyptian style for John Marshall's Temple Works in Leeds, is displayed at the Science Museum and considered to be the ultimate development of a Watt engine. A second model, apparently built by John Hick and probably shown at the Great Exhibition, is the open ended 3-cylinder A 2-2-2 locomotive on display at Bolton Museum. Locomotive building continued until 1855, and in all some ninety to a hundred locomotives were produced; and Amazonas by the leading shipbuilder in Liverpool, Thomas Wilson & Co. also builders of the Royal William; the screw propelled Mediterranean steamers, SS Nile and Orontes and the SS Don Manuel built by Alexander Denny and Brothers of Dumbarton. and took part in the Battle of The Tonelero Pass in 1851; the Amazonas participated in the Battle of Riachuelo in 1865. The mill made cartridge bags at the rate of about 20,000 per hour, sufficient to supply the entire British Army and Navy. The intention was to manufacture paper for various departments of Her Majesty's service. Steel boilers were first produced in 1863, mostly of the Lancashire type, and more than 200 locomotive boilers were made for torpedo boats into the 1890s. The Phoenix Boiler Works were purchased in 1891 to meet an increase in demand. The company introduced the highly efficient Corliss valve gear into the United Kingdom from the United States in about 1864 and was closely identified with it thereafter; An early horizontal Corliss type built in 1866, arrived in Australia the following year for Bell's Creek gold mine, Araluan, New South Wales; the engine is now housed at Goulburn Historic Waterworks Museum. A 50 hp Inglis and Spencer improved Corliss girder bed engine built in 1873 (No. 303), used to power Gamble's lace factory, Nottingham and an 1879 (No. 519), 120 hp non-condensing Corliss engine with Inglis and Spencer patent double clip trip gear are held at Forncett Industrial Steam Museum and Gurteen's textile manufactorary and museum, Haverhill, Suffolk. About 1881 Hick, Hargreaves received orders for two Corliss engines of 3000 hp, the largest cotton mill engines in the world. Hargreaves and Inglis trip gear was first applied to a large single cylinder 1800 hp Corliss engine at Eagley Mills near Bolton and the company received a Gold Medal for its products at the 1885 International Inventions Exhibition. An 1886 Hick, Hargreaves and Co. inverted, vertical single cylinder Corliss engine with Inglis and Spencer trip gear, used to run Ford Ayrton and Co.'s spinning mill, Bentham until 1966 is preserved under glass at Bolton Town Centre. Lüthy was appointed superintendent of hydraulic apparatus in 1870, about August 1883 he went on business to Australia connected with the shipping of frozen meat and to inspect machinery for a large freezing establishment, but died suddenly on 3 July 1884, the day after he returned home. Mill gearing was a speciality including large flywheels for rope drives, one example of 128 tons being 32 ft in diameter and groved for 56 ropes. Turbines and hydraulic machinery were also manufactured. Many of the tools were to suit the specialist work, with travelling cranes to take 15 to 40 tons in weight, a large lathe, side planer, slotting machine, pit planer and a tool for turning four 32 ft rope flywheels simultaneously. The workshops featured an 80ton hydraulic riveting machine. John Hick retired from the business in 1868 when he became a member of parliament (MP), active involvement of the Hick family ceased. William Hargreaves died in 1889 and, under the directorship of his three sons, John Henry, Frances and Percy, the business became a private limited company in 1892. started an apprenticeship, followed by his younger brother Geoffrey about 1900. ==Diversification==

, William Hargreaves JP c.1880, from a Photograph by Alex Bassano 25 Old Bond St. W. "Ink-Photo." Sprague & Co. London. Inscribed Mr Hargreaves Moss Bank Halliwell Bolton About 1885 Hick Hargreaves & Co became associated with Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti during the reconstruction of the Grosvenor Gallery and began to manufacture steam engines for power generation including those of Ferranti's Deptford Power Station, the largest power station in the world at the time. In 1908, the company was licensed to build uniflow engines. From 1911, the company began the manufacture of large diesel engines; however, these did not prove successful and were eventually discontinued. Boiler production finished in 1912. During World War I the company was involved in war work, The company's recoil gear for the Vickers 18 pounder quick firing gun was so successful that, by war's end, a significant part of the factory was devoted to its production. Civil manufacture was not suspended entirely and in 1916 the firm began making Hick-Bréguet two-stage steam jet air ejectors and high vacuum condensing plant for power generation, including a contract with Yorkshire Electric Power Company. Hick Hargreaves production greatly expanded as centralised power generation was adopted in Great Britain, During the 1930s, the company acquired the records, drawings, and patterns of four defunct steam engine manufacturers: J & E Wood, John Musgrave & Sons Limited, Galloways Limited and Scott & Hodgson Limited. As a consequence it made a lucrative business out of repairs and the supply of spare parts during the Great Depression. 3 and 4-cylinder triple expansion marine steam engines were built during the 1940s, post-war the company expanded its work in electricity generation, again becoming a major supplier to the CEB and branched out into food processing, oil refining and offshore oil equipment production, continuing to supply vacuum equipment to the chemical and petrochemical industries. Between 1946 and 1947 it supplied vacuum pumps to Vickers Armstrongs for the Barnes Wallis designed Stratosphere Chamber at Brooklands, built to investigate high-speed flight at very high altitudes. By the early 1960's Hick Hargreaves established itself in the practical application of nuclear energy, supplying de-aerating equipment for the early atomic power stations at Calder Hall, Chapelcross and Dounreay, and the complete feed heating system, condensing plant and steam dump condensers for Hunterston. The company received orders for the ejectors, de-aerators and dump condensers for the prototype advanced gas cooled reactor at Windscale and a commission to design the condensing plants and feed systems for the first 175.000 KW Japanese Atomic Power Station at Tokai Mura. was brought up to date with a logo, while Madden's established and successful marketing of specialities continued; ==Soho Iron Works==

Between the 1840s and 1870s, the firm had its own Brass Band, "John Hick's Esq, Band," known as the Soho Iron Works Band with a uniform of "... rich full braided coat, black trousers, with two-inch gold lace down the sides and blue cap with gold band," who would play airs through the streets of Bolton. File:International Inventions Exhibition award.jpg|Gold Medal certificate awarded to Hick, Hargreaves and Co. at the International Inventions Exhibition 1885 for their Corliss engine supplementary governor & automatic barring engine. signed by the Prince of Wales and Frederick Bramwell. File:Hick Hargreaves & Co. Ltd.14.jpg|Hick Hargreaves & Co. smiths and strikers with a forman 1888. An anvil and crankshaft in the foreground. File:Hick Hargreaves & Co. Ltd.15.jpg|Under assembly c.1890, half of one of the two 10,000 hp engines completed for Deptford Power Station at Hick, Hargreaves and Co. A travelling crane and hoist above. File:Hick Hargreaves & Co. Ltd.1.jpg|Finishing the ends of a crankshaft after building; an improvised lathe for machining a large steam engine crankshaft, 1900 File:Hick Hargreaves & Co. Ltd.2.jpg File:Hick Hargreaves & Co. Ltd.12.jpg File:Hick Hargreaves & Co. Ltd.3.jpg|Lancashire boiler 1900, painted with a protective coating, the mountings such as safety valves, stop valve, feed check valves and water level gauges, have been removed. File:Hick Hargreaves & Co. Ltd.13.jpg|Superheater of a Lancashire boiler 1900, for the extraction of heat from waste gasses, and transfer of heat to saturated steam passing from the boiler to the steam range or engine. This raised the overall thermal efficiency of the plant, and would also prevent damage from slugs of condensate by ensuring the saturated steam was dry and not wet. File:Hick Hargreaves certificate.jpg|Certificate issued by The Ministry of Labour for The National Scheme for the Employment of Disabled Men, recognising the membership of Hick Hargreaves and Co. Ltd. Signed by Thomas James Macnamara, Minister of Labour 1920–1922. ==Ownership changes==

In 1968, the Hargreaves family sold their shares to Electrical & Industrial Securities Ltd which became part of TI Group, and subsequently Smiths Group. In 2001, BOC bought the business from Smiths Group and relocated the offices to Wingates Industrial Estate in Westhoughton, and subsequently to Lynstock Way in Lostock, as part of Edwards. Some of the manufacturing equipment was transferred to their lower cost facility in Czechoslovakia. Smiths Group sold Soho Iron works to Sainsbury's and it closed in 2002. Two switchgear panels; the works clock, and a pair of cast iron gateposts with Hick's caduceus logo were preserved by the Northern Mill Engine Society. The 170 year old firm's records were deposited with Bolton library. ==Mills powered by B. Hick and Son engines==

• Crimble Mill, Haywood • Dean Mill, Barrow Bridge • Pontneddfechan Gun Powder Works, Glynneath • Temple Works, Leeds • Woolwich Arsenal Paper Cartridge Factory, London ==Mills powered by Hick, Hargreaves engines==

• Bedfont Gun Powder Mills, Hounslow • Rose Hill Mill, Bolton • Textile Mill, Chadderton ==See also==