Joseph Bamford the National Portrait Gallery. Joseph Bamford Joseph Cyril Bamford CBE (21 June 1916 – 1 March 2001) was a British businessman, who was the founder of the JCB company, manufacturing heavy plant. Joseph Bamford was born into a recusant Catholic family in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, which owned Bamfords Ltd, an agricultural engineering business. His great grandfather Henry Bamford was born in Yoxall, and had built up his own ironmongers business, which by 1881 employed 50 men, 10 boys and 3 women. Bamfords International Farm Machinery became one of the country's major agricultural equipment suppliers, famous for its balers, rakes, hay turners,
Harry Bamford (footballer, born 1886) based at Tipperary in August 1914, as part of the 16th Battalion of the 6th Division. They mobilised for war a month later and landed at St. Nazaire, France on 10 September. Bamford was badly wounded during skirmishes at Proven in the Ypres salient in November 1915, and died of septicaemia in No. 1 Red Cross Hospital, at Étaples. Bamford held the rank of Second Lieutenant and was awarded the 1914-15 Star, Victory and British War Medals. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission records show he was the son of Annie Bamford, of 5, Cliff Road, Itchen, Southampton, and the late