Joseph Bamford could shoot, fish, swim, and sail. Bamford paid more than fair wages, which rose regularly, and annual bonuses based on reports of individual worth. In 1967 Bamford stood on a farm cart and handed out personal cheques totalling £250,000. This extraordinary focus in return gave unprecedented levels of workforce flexibility, with the average JCB employee through the strike-dominated 1970s and early 1980s being seven times more productive than the average British manufacturing worker. In 1975 Bamford and his wife Marjorie (née Griffin – married 1941) handed over the business to their two sons, and retired to Switzerland as tax exiles.
John Bamford Slack received a knighthood. He married Alice Maud Mary Bretherton (died 1932), who after his death became the first wife of Sir Banister Flight Fletcher. John Bamford Slack Sir John Bamford Slack (11 July 1857 – 11 February 1909) was a British politician, member of the Liberal Party and Methodist lay preacher. Slack was born in Ripley, Derbyshire in 1857. His Liberal Wesleyan Methodist parents were Mary Ann (born Bamford) and Thomas Slack. Her father made bricks and his younger sister was the temperance activist Agnes Elizabeth Slack. He was elected to the House of Commons for the division of St