Aveling-Barford
Aveling-Barford was a large engineering company making road rollers, motorgraders, front loaders, sitedumpers, dump trucks and articulated dumptrucks or ADTs in Grantham, Lincolnshire. In its time, it was an internationally known company.
It had a dramatic formation, and was established by people not new to its field of engineering. It was formed in February 1934 when Aveling and Porter of Rochester, Kent effectively went bankrupt, when the parent company Agricultural & General Engineers (AGE) went into receivership in 1932. At the same time Barford & Perkins (related to today's Perkins Engines) of Peterborough were also entering administration. Frank Perkins worked for his family company of Barford & Perkins, and also Aveling and Porter. These two companies were Britain's two leading manufacturers of road rollers.
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. The site was bought by Wordsworth Holdings in 1988, who went into administration in 2010. Barfords is now owned by Invictas Engineering. 12 October 2015 Invictas Engineering sold the Supply of parts to Shellplant. 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 scraped.
