Joseph Bamford

[2] His great-grandfather Henry Bamford[3] was born in Yoxall and had built up his own ironmongers business, which by 1881 employed 50 men, 10 boys and 3 women.

[citation needed] 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.

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.

A short return stint with the family firm proved too stifling, and his uncle Henry released him, saying he thought Joe had "little future ahead of him.

"[2] After selling Brylcreem for a short while, in October 1945 Bamford rented a 10 by 15 ft (3 by 5 m) lock-up garage for 30 shillings (= £1.50) a week, and made a farm trailer from scrap steel and war surplus Jeep axles, using a prototype electric welder bought for £2-10s (= £2.50).

One of the first Learjets in Europe was purchased to fly in non-UK customers (the fleet has since got larger[7]), who were met by another European first, a stretched Cadillac with the same number of seats as the jet.

[1] In 1975, Bamford left his wife Marjorie (née Griffin – married 1941), handed over the business to their two sons Anthony and Mark,[9][10][11] and set up home with his secretary, Jayne Ellis, in Switzerland as tax exiles.

[1] At his death, JCB was the largest privately owned engineering company in Britain, employing 4,500 people and manufacturing 30,000 machines a year in 12 factories on three continents.