Sir Richard Trevithick Tangye(24 November 183314 October 1906) was a British manufacturer of engines and other heavy equipment.
Biography
Richard Tangye was born at Illogan, near Redruth, Cornwall, the fifth son in a family of six sons and three daughters of Joseph Tangye (1798-1854), a Quaker miner of Redruth, later a small shopkeeper and farmer, and Ann, née Bullock. As a young boy he worked in the fields, but when he was eight years old he was incapacitated from further manual labour by a fracture of the right arm. His father then determined to give him the best education he could afford, and young Tangye was sent to the Quaker Sidcot School in the Mendip Hills near the village of Winscombe, Somerset, where he progressed rapidly and became a pupil-teacher.
Career
Tangye disliked this role, and through an advertisement in The Friend obtained a clerkship in a small engineering firm in Birmingham, where two of his brothers, skilled mechanics, subsequently joined him. Here Richard Tangye remained four years, obtaining a complete mastery of the details of an engineering business, and introducing the system of a Saturday half-holiday which he had supported on its introduction by John Frearson, the radical Birmingham Engineer. It was subsequently adopted in many English industrial works.
Tangye Ltd
In 1856, Tangye started business in a small way in Birmingham as a hardware factor and commission agent. His first customers were the Cornish mine-owners in the Redruth district.
In March 1857, Richard Tangye, with brothers James and Joseph, started a manufacturing business in Mount Street under the title of James Tangye and Bros. Principally manufacturing hydraulic appliances and particularly lifting jacks, on 31 January 1858, their jacks were successfully employed in the launching of Brunel's steamship . Tangye said of the project:
In 1859, brothers Edward and George joined, together with George Price. The company acquired the patent of the differential pulley-block in 1861, and in 1862 James Tangye invented the Tangye Patent Hydraulic Jack. This resulted in the 1862 purchase and demolition of Soho-located Smethwick Hall, on the site of which was built the Cornwall Works. In 1867 the patent for a new type of Direct-acting Steam Pump was acquired, and in 1870 the company commenced the manufacture of steam engines.
In 1872, the two youngest brothers, Richard and George, became sole proprietors. They developed the company internationally, opening offices in Johannesburg and Sydney. which today has a collection of international importance covering fine art, ceramics, metalwork, jewellery, archaeology, ethnography, local history and industrial history. They also helped found Birmingham School of Art. Items from the Tangye Collection are also to be found at the Cromwell Museum.
Personal life
thumb|Aerial View of Cornwall Works, circa 1909.
thumb|upright|The cover of Tangye's autobiography "One and All"
Tangye was under five feet tall, short even by the standards of the time. Married, Tangye lived in Birmingham, and latterly London, but often returned to his cliff-edge house in Newquay, Cornwall. Richard Tangye has been described by his biographer as a man of great resolve with considerable talents for promoting his business, but also very much valuing his privacy and never wishing to hold public office in Birmingham. (Stephen Roberts, 'Sir Richard Tangye 1833-1906: A Cornish Entrepreneur in Victorian Birmingham, 2015). He was the grandfather of the authors Derek Tangye and Nigel Tangye. Through his niece Helena Tangye Lean, he was a great-uncle of film maker David Lean and his brother Edward Tangye Lean, founder of the Inklings.
After death
After the deaths of Richard (1906) and George (1920), with the family owning the majority of shares, their sons entered the business.