First established in 1850 its owners incorporated a limited liability company on 16 July 1895 to hold the business with the name Aveling & Porter.

Though Aveling & Porter's operations remained independent in 1919 its shares were sold to a new holding company, Agricultural & General Engineers (AGE).

[2] Aveling & Porter immediately took over the activities of Barford & Perkins changing its own name to Aveling-Barford on 13 February 1934.

Early in 1934 operations moved from Rochester to a 36-acre site, Invicta Works, on long-term lease (to 2009) from Ruston & Hornsby at Grantham.

[5] In 1979, the construction equipment company Acrow had wanted to take over Barfords[6] Conservative prime minister Alec Douglas-Home visited Grantham on Friday 29 November 1963, where he stayed overnight in Leadenham, at the home of Lt-Col William Reeve, the chairman of the local Conservative group.

[7] The prime minister toured the factory from 1pm, with Edward Barford[8] and went for a day of pheasant shooting at Scopwick, and to Leadenham Hall; he had dinner at 6pm in the George Hotel[9] Aveling-Barford were best known for their line of three-point roadrollers including the small GA up to the GC, The "Master Pavior" 3-point roller was one of the most famous diesel rollers.

A new dumptruck the RD44 was unveiled at Bauma to try and rejuvenate the line of dumptrucks but with limited success During the 1970s to the 1980s A-B were producing their own range of front loaders with 4X4 axles and are fitted with Cummins, Leyland or Ford heavy duty diesel engines.

In 2006 Singapore-based ST Kinetics bought the rights to the Aveling Barford RXD series articulated dumptrucks, which are now sold under the TRX Build brand.

In August 2007 Moxy Engineering of Norway announced plans to buy the intellectual property rights of the Barford rigid dump truck range.