John Hick (2 July 1815 – 2 February 1894) was a wealthy 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 from school and from a young age, management of the Bolton engineering firm Benjamin Hick and Son with his father. Following Benjamin Hick's death in 1842, Hick became senior partner in the family business, later Hick, Hargreaves, & Co and a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1845. He was Church Warden for James Slade and warden for St Peter's church Belmont, Lancashire between 1862 and 1874, Governor of Bolton Grammar School, Town councillor for nine years from 1844, a member of the Society of Arts, founder member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers from 1847 until 1852, member of the London Association of Foreman Engineers and Draughtsman, National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church in England and Wales, Justice of the Peace for the Borough of Bolton and Salford Hundred, liberal patron of the fine arts and a director of the London and North Western Railway under the chairmanship of Sir Richard Moon and Lord Stalbridge, from 1871 until his death. In 1839, age 23, while working for B. Hick and Son, John Hick Jr as he was referred to at the time, 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