Sir Richard Trevithick Tangye[needs IPA] (24 November 1833 – 14 October 1906) was a British manufacturer of engines and other heavy equipment.

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.

[3] 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.

[6] The company was commissioned to design the hydraulic systems for the UK's first funicular cliff railway in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, in 1869.

Richard Tangye and his brother George were founding benefactors of Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery in 1885,[10] which today has a collection of international importance covering fine art, ceramics, metalwork, jewellery, archaeology, ethnography, local history and industrial history.

[10] His collection included many rare manuscripts and printed books, medals, paintings, objets d'art and a bizarre assemblage of 'relics'.

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.

Engine production was stopped after World War II, with the company concentrating on hydraulic pumps, valves and related systems.

The only modern study is Sir Richard Tangye 1833-1914: A Cornish Entrepreneur in Victorian Birmingham (2015) by Stephen Roberts.