“Who is Joseph Cyril Bamford?”
Joseph Bamford was an archetypal capitalist hero, a man who started his own business in a garage in 1945 and turned it into a world-class manufacturing company by the time he retired 30 years later.
His initials, JCB, had become a generic term for his company's principal product and the letters themselves have become a word in their own right, defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as "a type of mechanical excavator with a shovel at the front and a digging arm at the rear".
Joe was born on June 21, 1916 to a well-off Roman Catholic family.
After attending Stonyhurst College, Lancashire, he worked in Coventry for the UK's largest “machine-tool” manufacturer, Alfred Herbert, followed by several years in Ghana as an engineer.
In 1941, he was recruited by the RAF, where he worked in the Ministry of Supply and was deployed quickly back to the African Gold Coast.
Here, he ran a staging post for USAF planes being ferried to the Middle East.
Years later at his home town, he worked for the Ministry of Aircraft Production and English Electric, where he learned valuable lessons about welding techniques.
This was also the time he rejoined the family business, his great grandfather, Henry Bamford, but soon released him saying he had "little future ahead of him."
In October 1945, he rented a 10 ft. by 15 ft. lock-up garage in Uttoxeter, for 30 shillings about £1.50 a week, made a farm trailer from scrap steel and WW2 surplus Jeep axles, using a prototype electric welder bought for £2.50, then sold it for £45.
He opened up JCB for business, the day his first son, Anthony, was born.
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| Joe's Rented Garage | Preserved Electric Welder | Europe's First Tipping Agricultural Trailer |
One of the first logo's of JCB
“JCB’s Success”
Few people excel either at engineering or marketing, but Bamford was among a handful of postwar engineers who successfully combined both skills.
His engineering abilities, and passion for creating problem-solving machinery, enabled JCB to grow quickly.
The business began to take off three years later, when Bamford became the first European manufacturer to apply hydraulics to farm trailers, loaders, and excavators.
JCB's Early Publications
Having no interest in taking over rival businesses, his philosophy of: "Focus on what you do best, be innovative, and re-invest in product development and the latest manufacturing technologies;" resulted in a series of market leading innovations:
- 1948 - introduced the first hydraulic tipping trailer in Europe
- 1950 - moved to an old cheese factory in Rocester where the workforce totalled six
- 1951 - began painting his machinery yellow
- 1953 - brought out his breakthrough product, MK1, the backhoe loader
- 1957 - brought out the "hydra-digga",incorporating the excavator and the major loader as a single all-purpose tool which was useful for both the agricultural as well as construction industry, which JCB grew with
- 1960s: His hydraulic tractors entered the North American market, proving a long lasting success. It became, and still is, the brand leader in the world. The Dancing Diggers started.
- 1964: By now JCB had sold over 3,000 3C backhoe loaders, particularly to customers in North America.
- 1969: He was awarded the CBE for Services to Export.
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| The First Backhoe Loader in the World! | The JCB MK1 - The Hydra Digga 1957 |
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| The 1st JCB Excavator in 1965 | The 1st JCB Wheeled Loader in 1970 |
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| The 1st JCB Telescopic Handler 1977 |
With exports starting to the United States, profits escalated from 1960 onwards.
JCB has won seven Queen's Awards for Exports as its sales spread to more than 130 countries around the world, while Joe himself was awarded a CBE for Services to Export in 1969.
In 1993, he became the first and currently only British citizen to be honoured in the American Construction Equipment Hall of Fame.
The company's success, however, was not “only” due to Bamford's inventiveness.
Bamford personally demanded to know daily from his staff how many "JCB Yellow" vehicles were off the road awaiting spares.
Bamford created an image that JCB's were there to work, and if an owner-operator’s machine was down, then Joe Bamford wanted to know about it - which gained him 95% of the owner-operator market in the UK.
Joe placed a 12v socket into the cab of his vehicles, and delivered the first 100 personally, arriving in his Rolls Royce with number plate JCB1.
One of the first Learjet's in Europe was purchased to fly in non-UK customers (the fleet has since got larger), who were met by another European first, a stretched Cadillac with the same number of seats as the jet.
Joe also conceived the "dancing diggers," whose 1999 display in Las Vegas stopped the gamblers.
“Personal Style”
Joe’s success was built on the classic virtues of innovation, hard work, high standards, and giving his customers what they wanted and his employees what they deserved.
He arrived at work every day at nine in the morning and stayed until 11 at night.
Rocester was built along the lines of Bourneville and Port Sunlight into an effective marketing home for the company, and an efficient production centre and a virtual "home" for his employees. He saw no need to recognize Unions.
The Rocester works were surrounded by 10,000 acres (40 km2) of landscaped grounds in which his company's employees could shoot, fish, swim, and sail.
Joe paid more than fair wages, which rose regularly, and annual bonuses based on reports of individual worth - in 1967 Joe stood on a farm cart and handed out personal cheques totalling pounds £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.
He was also puritanical with money, boasting that his wife still made the curtains even after he became rich, and extremely reluctant to borrow money for the business.
He was an effective salesman, in spite of a reserved manner, always ready to demonstrate the effectiveness of his company's products.
In 1975 Joe and his wife Marjorie (nee Griffin - married 1941) handed over the business to their two sons, and retired to Switzerland as a tax exile.
He continued to design both boats and diesel engines, as well as his own garden.
Joe was awarded the honorary degree of a Doctor of Technology from both Loughborough University in 1989; and Keele University in 2000.
Joe Bamford died in a London clinic on 1 March 2001.
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.
It had revenues of £850m in 1999, earned from 140 countries.
Today, JCB has one of the finest engineering factories in the world, lead by Sir Anthony Bamford.
In 2000, A JCB factory was completed in Pooler near Savannah, Georgia in USA. In 2001, JCB opened a factory in Brazil. And in 2005, JCB opened a new factory in China at Pudong close to Shanghai.
"JCB Produces Over 300 Different Machines. Today, these are the CORE Products of JCB"
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| Articulated Dump Trucks | Backhoe Loaders | Compact Excavators | Compactors |
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| Fastracs | Robot Skid Steers | Rough Terrain Forklifts | Telescopic Handlers |
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| Teletruks | Tracked Excavators | Wheeled Excavators | Wheeled Loaders |
“DID YOU KNOW THAT JCB IS KNOWN FOR... Award in Discovery Channel's Greatest Ever Earthmovers Machine. Watch Discovery Channel's Greatest Ever Earthmovers Where They Proved That JCB Is The No.1 Construction Machine.”
“JCB Backhoe Loaders Are The MOST SOLD Backhoe Loaders in the World!”
JCB Backhoe Loader World's #1
“JCB Telescopic Handlers Are The MOST SOLD Telescopic Handlers in the World!”
JCB Telescopic Handler World's #1
“JCB Supplied Over 3,000 Vehicles & Heavy Equipment To The Military Forces Of 45 Countries, Where They Are Used For Critical Engineering And Logistics Operations. This Video Was Shot Specially To Focus On The US Army's Use Of The JCB Military Products. At The End Of The Film, You Can Watch The JCB Backhoe Loader Maneuvering At Sea! Enjoy!”
If you want to learn more, pls. click on this link: JCB Defense Equipment
Recently, JCB was signed with a contract with the United States Army to deploy JCB HMEE's in Afghanistan.
"SAVANNAH, GA– The U.S. construction market may be stalled, but JCB Construction Equipment, the world’s largest privately-owned producer of construction machinery, continues to tap into its military-industrial roots to create new opportunities. The result is a revolutionary, new combat-ready backhoe loader – the High Mobility Engineer Excavator (HMEE) – and a $230 Million procurement contract with the U.S. Army (the largest equipment order in the company’s history). The first nine of the approximately 800 JCB HMEEs to be produced deployed with the Army to Afghanistan."
To read more: JCB HMEE's Deployed in Afghanistan
“14 U.K. Queen's Award For Technology And Export Achievement”
Over the last several years, JCB has been continually receiving awards from the Queen of England up to the present. If you want to know more, of what these awards are for, pls. click here now: Queen's Awards for Business Enterprise
“A Family Company”
On 2006, Sir Anthony Bamford (The 2nd Generation), successor of JCB, visited the Philippines. He makes time to visit his 1,000 dealers worldwide, at least once in his lifetime. Today, he is the head of JCB Excavators Ltd.
“Watch The JCB 4CX 4x4x4 Backhoe Loader - Live In Action!”
Did you know that The JCB Backhoe Loader won as the Greatest Ever Earthmoving Machine? In the past, it has also won United Kingdom's Queen's Award for Innovation & Technology. Today, JCB Backhoe Loaders have the Largest Market Share.
“Also, You Can View The Power of the JCB JS200 Excavator As Demonstrated By One Of The Best Operators Of JCB. Just Hit The Play Button Below”
I hope you got a small clue of who or what JCB is all about...
Were you thinking of a Corporate Professional Image?
Or perhaps, a BIG Business run by Men and Women in the boardroom?
Think again...
JCB has always been a Global Company, but with a Human Face.
The article about Joseph Cyril Bamford above was copied and paraphrased from various sources on the Internet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._C._Bamford_(person)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/joseph-bamford-728897.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2001/mar/05/guardianobituarie