A member of one of Britain’s most famous industrial families who gave his life for King and Country in the First World War was honoured on Tuesday 13th October, on the centenary of his death.

Agricultural Engineer Oswald Bamford, of Doveridge, was a partner in the world-renowned agricultural machinery manufacturers Bamfords Ltd in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire when he gave up his job to fight alongside dozens of men who worked for him and his family.

Two months after he entered the war with the 1st/6th Batallion The North Staffordshire Regiment - and a year after he was promoted to the rank of Captain - he was killed aged 38 in a hail of gunfire at the Battle of Loos on October 13th, 1915 as he advanced towards German trenches. He was one of 15 Uttoxeter men who died in battle in the space of a few hours – a day remembered as one of the blackest in the town’s history.

Another man who died was Uttoxeter cabinet maker James Perkin Fradley who rushed to Captain Bamford’s aid when he saw him fall and he too was killed by gunfire during his brave rescue attempt. By Armistice Day 1918, a total of 49 employees of Bamford’s Ltd had been killed in the war.

This week's ceremony came as JCB confirmed it would contribute towards the cost of installing additional plaques on Uttoxeter’s war memorial bearing the names of 50 men who perished in World War One – at least two of whom worked for the family company Bamfords Ltd - but whose details were omitted when the cenotaph was erected.

At his death, Captain Bamford left behind two young daughters Olga, aged four and Gabrielle, aged three. His body was never retrieved and while he is commemorated on the Loos Memorial, his widow Daisy paid for a stained glass window to be installed in his memory at the Catholic Church in Balance Street, Uttoxeter and for a monument to be erected in Uttoxeter Cemetery at the Bamford family burial ground.


Stephen Bamford lays a wreath in his great uncle's honour

On Tuesday his relatives gathered at that monument for a short service of remembrance. Prayers were said and The Last Post played. Among the wreaths laid was one from Lord Bamford and his family which read “in grateful remembrance of your sacrifice.” Lord Bamford’s grandfather and Oswald Bamford were first cousins.

Captain Bamford’s great nephew Stephen Bamford travelled from Surrey to honour his great-uncle’s memory and read a poignant extract from Laurence Binyon’s poem ‘For the Fallen’ during the service.

Father-of-three Stephen Bamford, 65, said: “The story of Oswald Joseph Bamford’s death in the First World War is one that has been passed down the generations and it’s obvious from what we know that he was a well-respected figure in Uttoxeter.

“Interestingly it was the death of Captain Bamford that led to my father being named Oswald Joseph as a mark of respect. The country has marked the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of World War One and it’s fitting that today, we as a family, should honour the part one of our relatives played exactly 100 years after his death.”


Family wreaths on Oswald Bamford's memorial