John Wigham Richardson (7 January 1837 – 15 April 1908) was a British shipbuilder on Tyneside during the late 19th and early 20th century.

Although the family business was in leather tanning, he devoted his life to shipbuilding, learning his skills initially as a draughtsman for Lloyd's Register of Shipping in Liverpool (in 1853) and then as an apprentice to Jonathon Robson, a steam-tug builder in Gateshead (from 1853 to 1856).

In 1860, at the age of just 23, he founded the Neptune Works, often incorrectly referred to as Wigham Richardson, at Walker on Tyne, with a loan of less than £5,000 from his father.

This was one of the world's first shipyards to build ships in steel, and the original steam engine on the site also provided electric lighting to the neighbourhood.

[3] This Company became the most technically advanced ship building facilities anywhere and built the RMS Mauretania for Cunard which was launched in 1906 and held the Blue Riband as the fastest liner across the Atlantic for 26 years.