Nix family

The Nix and Ashburner Nix family, of London and Crawley, is an English banking family that became part of the landed gentry in the 19th century. Members have been notable as bankers in the City of London, notably as partners in the London bank Fuller, Banbury, Nix & Co, and as large estate owners in Crawley and public officials in Sussex, where John Ashburner Nix served as High Sheriff in 1911. The family had ties to Colonial India and inherited Tilgate House in the 1860s. More recently, family member Alexander Nix became known as CEO of Cambridge Analytica.

Nix
Ashburner Nix
Great hall at Tilgate House in Crawley, built for the Nix family in the 1860s
Current regionEngland
Connected familiesPaus family
Estate(s)Tilgate House (1860s–1939)

History

The family is descended from the leather cutter John Parfitt Nix (died 1802) of Tower Dock in the City of London.[1] He was the father of John Nix (1791–1873), whose sons John Hennings Nix and Edward Winkelmann Nix were partners in the London private bank Fuller, Banbury, Nix & Co.[2]

In 1865 John Hennings Nix married Sarah Ashburner (born 1845 in Calcutta), daughter of the wealthy Indian-born businessman George Ashburner; the Ashburner family had long-standing ties to India dating back to the East India Company's rule from the mid 18th century. John Hennings Nix acquired Tilgate House, a 2,185-acre estate in Crawley, from his father-in-law and built a new French-style great house in the 1860s.[3] The staff working on the estate counted some 150 people. In 1904, the estate went to their son John Ashburner Nix, who served as High Sheriff of Sussex in 1911[4] and who died in 1927. The estate then passed to his brother Charles George Ashburner Nix who, on the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, put it up for auction.[5]

Among Charles George Ashburner Nix' descendants are the investment manager Paul David Ashburner Nix and his son Alexander James Ashburner Nix, former CEO of Cambridge Analytica, who is married to shipping heiress Olympia Paus.[6]

References
  1. Will of John Parfitt Nix of Tower Dock, City of London
  2. F G Hilton Price, A handbook of London Bankers (London: Chatto & Windus, 1876)
  3. The History of Tilgate Estate
  4. Historic list of High Sheriffs of Sussex from 1086 to 1974
  5. Tilgate Mansion
  6. Alexander Nix' norske kone er rederarving og står midt i Facebook-skandalen, Dagbladet
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