Abstract
ON November 24 the centenary occurs of the birth of Sir Richard Tangye, the most prominent of the five brothers who founded the well-known engineering firm of Messrs. Tangye, Ltd., of the Cornwall Works, Birmingham. From the humblest beginnings, the business, begun in one small workroom in Birmingham in 1855, grew into a great concern employing 2,500 persons supplying machinery to all parts of the world. Like his brothers, Tangye was born in Illogan, Cornwall, the parish in which Richard Trevithick was born, and was the son of a Quaker farmer of strong character. Through an accident he was debarred from mechanical pursuits, but during the greater part of his life he was the most active and enterprising of the family. Success first came to the firm when it supplied hydraulic jacks to Brunei for the purpose of pushing the Great Eastern into the Thames. The jacks were of an improved type invented by James and Joseph Tangye, and Sir Richard Tangye used to say, “We launched the Great Eastern and she launched us.” Similar jacks were afterwards used for raising Cleopatra's Needle.
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