Joseph Bamford 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, hay Wufflers, Mangold cutters,
Joseph Bamford and standing engines, which were exported all over the world. The company eventually ceased trading in 1986. After attending Stonyhurst College, he joined the Alfred Herbert company in Coventry, then the UK's largest machine-tool manufacturer, and rose to represent the firm in Ghana. He returned home in 1938 to join the family firm, but in 1941 was called up by the RAF to serve in World War II. Working in supply and logistics, he returned to the African Gold Coast, to run a staging post for USAF planes being ferried to the Middle East. On return home in 1944, Bamford