Aveling-Barford

Former construction equipment manufacturer

Aveling Barford was a large engineering company making road rollers, motorgraders, front loaders, site dumpers, dump trucks and articulated dump trucks in Grantham, England. In its time, it was an internationally known company.

Aveling Barford underwent a dramatic revival. 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). The holding company was unsuccessful and collapsed in 1932. Its fourteen subsidiaries – which in the mid 1920s had 10,000 employees – were sold by AGE's liquidator and most of them regained their independence. Two subsidiaries, Aveling & Porter and Barford & Perkins, kept on operating profitably throughout the collapse of their parent. Edward Barford of Barford & Perkins also chairman of Aveling & Porter enlisted the help of R. A. Lister & Co and its associate Ruston & Hornsby. Lister and Ruston bought the two companies from the receiver. The products of all four businesses were fitted with diesel engines. 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. On the board of directors were Edward James Barford and William Geoffrey Barford (from Barford & Perkins), and John Heinrich Wulff Pawlyn, a director of Ruston & Hornsby based at the Ransomes subsidiary in Ipswich, and George Ruston Sharpley, the managing director of Ruston & Hornsby.

In the 1930s it made cooling equipment for dairy farms, and cooking equipment for hotels, hospitals, and canteens. It became a public company on 29 June 1937. At this time it claimed to make 75% of the road rollers in Britain, and world leaders in their field. Edward Barford (23 April 1898 – 11 July 1979) became the chairman of the company from 1933, remaining until 1968. It began making its first earth moving equipment – the Aveling Dumper. During the Second World War the company made Bren Gun Carriers, shell fuse caps and the Loyd Carrier. The company also made calfdozers (small bulldozers). From April 1946 two subsidiary companies were formed – Barford Developments Ltd and Barford (Agricultural) Ltd. On 17 September 1946 a new factory in Newcastle upon Tyne was opened.

In 1967 it became part of British Leyland. British Leyland engines were to be used as part of the deal, but there were reliability problems. In 1975 Aveling Barford became Aveling Marshall after BLMC acquired Marshall Fowler. The company was bought in December 1983 by American businessman Reid Eschallier (3 December 1934 – 13 July 2007) from Pennsylvania. In 1979, the construction equipment company Acrow had wanted to take over Barfords

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. The prime minister toured the factory from 1pm, with Edward Barford and went for a day of pheasant shooting at Scopwick, and to Leadenham Hall; he had dinner at 6pm in the George Hotel

The site was bought by Wordsworth Holdings in 1988, who went into administration in 2010. Barfords is now owned by Invictas Engineering. Update: 12 October 2015 Invictas Engineering sold the Supply of parts to Shellplant www. shellplant. co. uk

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. In 2008 Moxy was purchased by the South Korean Doosan (formerly Daewoo), and renamed to Doosan Moxy As and later Doosan Infracore Norway AS. The project was later cancelled and the prototype of the new range earlier presented at Bauma in 2007 was scrapped. Barfords' sports field is still in existence, called Arnoldfield, in Gonerby Hill Foot. In October 2012 Gravity FM, Grantham's community radio station produced a tribute in words and music to Aveling Barford, on sale to raise funds to support the running costs of the station.