[9][10][1][11] Hick's aptitude for mechanics and passion for drawing led to an apprentiship in 1804 (age 14) as a draughtsman with Fenton, Murray and Wood[1] at the Round Foundry in Holbeck.

[1] The offer was declined and Hick moved instead to Bolton in 1810[8] to work for Smalley, Thwaites and Company[12] as manager[1] of Rothwell's Union Foundry on Blackhorse Street.

[14][15] In July 1820 Hick joined other leading industrialists Isaac Dobson, Thomas Hardcastle and Peter Rothwell together with engineer and brother-in-law, Joshua Routledge[11][16] to form the Bolton Gaslight and Coke Company,[17] providing gas for public buildings, street lamps and industrial lighting.

[22] Also with Rothwell and the Dobsons, Hick was a prominent member of the Black Horse Club, that met "to discuss not only business matters but the most interesting topics affecting that period".

[27] Following the occasion that gathered crowds of 40–50 thousand people, in October 1828, Hick and Rothwell received Robert Peel, then home secretary, as a guest at their foundry.

[28] In 1837 Hick was, among other local figures including Thomas Ridgway (1778–1839),[29] Edward Bolling, John Hargreaves elder (1780–1860) and Jr, a member of the Provisional Committee of the Bolton and Preston Railway.

[32][33] According to the records of Charles Beyer and an appraisal by John Farey, Hick was apparently responsible for pioneering the use of high-pressure and compound steam engines in textile mills, following the designs of Arthur Woolf.

[35][36] Locomotives built by Hick were of the best quality, Edward Bury considered them "extremely well made" and they were used by the London and Birmingham Railway for the very first scheme of standardisation of parts.

To aid in the construction it is claimed that Bodmer devised the travelling crane; the Egerton wheel became a tourist destination during the 1830s and 1840s, it was one of the largest in the United Kingdom attracting visits from industrialists and politicians.

[62] Hick designed a Gas Pillar and presented it for the opening of Bolton's New Market Place (1826), claimed to be the finest uncovered market in the country; about November 1859 his son John Hick gifted a circular "cattle fountain" round the base,[63] both gaslight and trough remained a feature of the square until 1925,[64][65] the pillar described in 1825 as "a piece of elegant and classical workmanship" and "justly the admiration of persons of taste".

[67] Hick designed a heating system for Richard Lane's The Oaks (demolished), an imposing Ionic villa conceived in 1838, and home of Quaker, Henry Ashworth.

A man of "acknowledged taste[8] and judgment"; Hick's private collection built over a period of 30 years "valuable, well known and much admired", comprised works of the Italian, Flemish, Dutch and British Masters.

He was regarded as "one of the most liberal of the provincial patrons of Art", generous in his support of the British school, in particular a friend of Henry Liverseege who painted several works for Hick, and "on terms of intimacy" with many artists.

Anon out of the earth a fabric hugeRose like an exhalation, with the soundOf dulcet symphonies and voices sweet,Built like a temple, where pilasters roundWere set, and Doric pillars overlaidWith golden architrave... On 9 September 1842, Hick died suddenly at Bolton from a "disease of the heart", age 52.

The picture was entrusted to John Grundy and Henry Cousins undertook the work in mezzotint; proofs were then published at a moderate price,[112] examples can be found today in various museum collections.

He was an affectionate husband, a kind father, and a sincere friend; alike distinguished by eminent ability, and uniform integrity; genius, in whatever art or science displayed, even found in him a liberal patron; He was benefactor to this town, where his worth will be long appreciated; and his loss deeply deplored.