John Ashburner Nix (1 July 1866 – 9 May 1927) was an English businessman, estate owner, Conservative Party (UK) politician and barrister who served as High Sheriff of Sussex in 1911.
He was the son of John Hennings Nix, one of the partners in the London bank Fuller, Banbury, Nix & Co, and Sarah Ashburner, a wealthy heiress born in Calcutta (now Kolkata), India whose father George Ashburner (1810–1869), originally from Bombay (now Mumbai), had made a fortune as a merchant in India and at the end of his life bought Tilgate House, a 2,185-acre estate in Crawley, Sussex. Tilgate House was inherited by Sarah Nix, an only child, and following her death the estate was owned by John Ashburner Nix from 1904 until his death in 1927; the estate was then inherited by his brother Charles Nix. He served as a second lieutenant in the Welch Regiment before studying law. He was a director of the mining company San Antonio de Esimilacho of Peru. He stood as a conservative candidate for Ashburton in the 1895 United Kingdom general election, but lost to incumbent Charles Seale-Hayne.
References
- Historic list of High Sheriffs of Sussex from 1086 to 1974
- Lichfield Mercury, Friday 10 March 1911, p. 3
- "The History of Tilgate Estate". Archived from the original on 30 August 2012. Retrieved 9 May 2019.
- Pine, L. G. (1939). "Nix of Tilgate". Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry (16th ed.). p. 1686.
- Kent & Sussex Courier, Friday 13 May 1927, p. 6
- West Sussex County Times, Saturday 27 August 1927, pp. 6–7
- Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, Thursday 29 August 1895, p. 1