Hick, Hargreaves & Co Ltd was a company of engineers and millwrights located at Soho Foundry, Bolton, and specialised in locomotives, beam engines and Corliss engines for mills, boilers, and marine diesel engines. Established in 1845, when John Hick, an engineer, entered into partnership with William Hargreaves, his brother-in-law, the new company emerged from Benjamin Hick and Sons. John Hick had been a partner in the predecessor company with his father and brother, both Benjamin. The elder Benjamin Hick died in 1842 and the younger Benjamin left the company around the same time.

When John Hick retired in 1868, William Hargreaves assumed sole ownership of the company. On Hargreaves’ death in 1889, the company retained its name under new directorship and gained limited liability under the name Hick, Hargreaves & Co Ltd. Expansion in 1891 saw the acquisition of the Phoenix Boiler Works, with all boiler production moving from the Soho Foundry to the new works. The business registered as a public company on 29 March 1892, and was listed as engineers, millwrights and boiler makers.

By the end of the 19th century, Hick, Hargreaves & Co Ltd was a supplier of stationery steam engines for electricity generating stations. From 1911, the company manufactured marine diesel engines. The 1914 edition of Whittaker’s Red Book listed the company as “Engineers, millwrights, manufacturers of diesel oil engines. Specialities: Corliss and drop valve engines up to 10,000 IHP, diesel oil engines, mill gearing, super-heaters. Employees 1,000.”

During the First World War, the company began manufacturing high vacuum condensing plant, used in power generation. With the adoption of centralised power generation under the National Grid, the manufacture of plant for power stations became an important part of the company’s output.

In 1933, Hick, Hargreaves & Co Ltd acquired the records, drawings and patterns of three defunct steam engine manufacturers, which they used to manufacture spare parts and carry out repairs to the large stationary steam engines still in use in many textile mills. After the textile industry went into decline after the Second World War, the company expanded its work in electricity generation, as well as branching out into food processing, oil refining, petrochemicals and offshore oil production.

By 1961, the company was mainly manufacturing power station equipment, and employed 600 people.

In 1968 the company was acquired by Electrical and Industrial Securities Ltd (EIS). Hick, Hargreaves & Co Ltd continued to trade as a general engineering company, specialising in the manufacture of condensing plant, feed heating system, rotary compressors and vacuum pumps, condensers and high vacuum plants for industrial purposes during the 1970s. The increased exploration for oil in the North Sea and the modernising of power station equipment saw the company’s fortunes improve due to the demand for high vacuum pumps. The company invested in new machine tools and as a result gained important orders from Japan along with important contracts for water flood equipment for the North Sea Oil Fields and for central vacuum plant for nuclear power stations.

The difficult trading conditions in the 1990s brought about the decision to close the Soho Works and restructure the UK business after a significant financial loss in 1999. A cash offer from BOC Netherlands Holding Limited was accepted in 2001 against the background of continuing losses for the company. In 2002, after the company had been sold to BOC Limited the directors took the view that an orderly run down of the affairs of the company was in order. Since 2003 the company has not traded and has acted as a name protection for Hick Hargreaves.