Engineer. Co-founder of Aston Martin and designer of the first Aston Martin motor car.
Robert Bamford attended Sherborne School as a day pupil from May 1897 to April 1900, having previously attended Sherborne Preparatory School from 1894 to 1897 (under headmaster William Heitland Blake).
Robert was born on 16 June 1883 at Lamarsh Lodge in Sudbury, Essex, the oldest of four children born to the Rev. Robert Bamford (1854-1898) and Blanche Edith (née Porter) (1856-1936). His father had served as curate of Thornbury, Gloucestershire (1880-1881), St John’s, Ladywood, Birmingham (1881-1882), Lamarsh, Essex (1882-1885), and Holy Trinity, Lambeth (1885-1886), but resigned his curacy due to ill health.
In 1894 the family moved to Sherborne where on 6 March 1894 the Rev. Bamford was granted a seven year lease of Lynton House (now Abbot’s Litten) in Long Street. From 1895 to 1898 the Rev. Bamford served as secretary to the Yeatman Hospital in Sherborne and in September 1898 organised a prestigious fund-raising bazaar at the Digby Hotel which was opened by Queen Victoria’s granddaughter Princess Victoria of Battenberg. Unfortunately the strain of organising the event caused the Rev. Bamford’s health to give way and he died on 9 November 1898, aged 44, and was buried in Sherborne Cemetery. In 1901, Blanche Bamford was granted a further seven year lease of Lynton House (Abbot’s Litten), but following her marriage in May 1904 to the Rev. Thomas Myers (1835-1926) she left Sherborne.
Robert’s siblings were
- Rachel Bamford (1885-1974) was born on 14 August 1885. In 1911 she was a student at the Colonial Training College, Stoke Prior, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, and during the First World War served in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC). She died at Eastbourne, Sussex on 4 October 1974.
- Edward Bamford (1887-1928) was born on 28 May 1887. He attended Sherborne Preparatory School as a day pupil from 1896 to 1900 and Sherborne School as a day pupil from September 1900 to April 1902. During the First World War he served with distinction in the Royal Marines, being awarded the DSO for his actions during the Battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916, and the VC for his services during the Zeebrugge Raid on 22/23 April 1918 when he led an assault on a battery ‘with the utmost coolness and valour’. He was invested with the VC by King George VI at Buckingham Palace on 31 July 1918. In 1926 he was appointed Small Arms and Musketry Instructor at HMS Tamar in China being promoted to Major in 1928, but whilst at Wei Hai Wei he became ill and died of pneumonia en route to Shanghai on 30 September 1928. He was buried at Bubbling Well Cemetery in Shanghai. On 17 April 2018, Haringey Council unveiled a paving stone in memory of Edward Bamford VC at 151 Park Road, London N8 8JD. He is one of five Shirburnians to have been awarded the Victoria Cross.
- Arthur Bamford (1889-1915) was born 20 June 1889. He attended Sherborne Preparatory School as a day pupil from 1898 to 1903 and Sherborne School as a day pupil from September 1903 to 1905. During the First World War he served as a Private in the Grenadier Guards and was killed near Loos on 11 October 1915, aged 25. He is commemorated on the Sherborne School Roll of Honour, at St Mary’s A.D.S. Cemetery, Haisnes, IX.D.13, and St Marychurch War Memorial, Torquay, Devon.
As the eldest son Robert was probably expected to follow his father and grandfather into the church, however, his heart evidently lay elsewhere, as is revealed by the Sherborne School admission register in which he stated in May 1897 (at the age of 13½) that he wanted to become an engineer. Despite this he was a member of the classical side of the School studying Latin and Greek, Divinity, English, History, French, and Maths. He was also a Private in the School’s cadet corps and played cricket and rugby for the day boys. Robert was also a contemporary at Sherborne of Llewelyn Powys (1884-1939), one of the famous literary Powys brothers, who wrote home in January 1899 saying ‘I am going to dinner today to some people called Bamfords.’
Robert left Sherborne in April 1900 and followed his dream, serving an apprenticeship until about 1905 with a fitter, possibly in Gateshead. He appears to have specialised in marine engineering and from around 1908 to 1912 was a junior partner with the marine and motor engineers Hesse & Savory, a company formed in 1905 by Gerald Savory and former Sherborne School pupil John Harley Bridges Hesse (1872-1946), with whom on 27 April 1910 Robert attended an OS dinner at the Gaiety Restaurant in London.
Throughout his life Robert was a keen cyclist, an interest that may have been fostered during his time in Sherborne when he lived across the road in Long Street from Edwin Childs’ Cycle Works. Edwin Childs (1859-1934) was a cycle engineer who made and rode the first penny-farthing in Sherborne and held patents for a number of bicycle-related inventions. Robert went on to join the Bath Road Club in Hayes, West London, one of the oldest cycling clubs in the world, where he met Lionel Martin with whom in 1912 he formed a business partnership with the ultimate aim of producing a car ‘for the discerning owner driver, with fast touring in mind.’
In January 1913 Bamford and Martin Ltd was established, but Lionel Martin, who was a great self-publicist, decided to capitalise on his recent successes at the Aston Hill climbs in Buckinghamshire and renamed the business Aston Martin with the tagline ‘We race the cars we sell.’ Robert provided the engineering expertise, designing in 1914 the very first Aston Martin car – Coal Scuttle – which, fitted with a revised Coventry Simplex engine, was registered for the road on 16 March 1915 with the registration number AM 4656.
When the First World War broke out Robert joined the 25th (County of London) Reserve Cyclist Battalion and was posted to 1st Company, patrolling the coast of East Anglia. In September 1915 he applied, with the help of Nowell Smith, Headmaster of Sherborne School, for a temporary commission in the regular army for the period of war, serving in France from November 1915 with the 33rd Field Ambulance Workshop Unit, and until January 1919 with the 2nd (320 Company) Army Service Corps Repair Shop at Rouen. In January 1919 he was invalided home with Spanish Flu, and was treated at Reading War Hospital in Berkshire, later marrying his nurse Muriel Matilda Etches (1898-1974). He remained in the army, serving with the 615th Mechanical Transport Company in Dublin where on 8 November 1919 he injured his jaw when his bicycle skidded coming down Dundrum Hill. He was decommissioned on 2 February 1920.
Back in civilian life, in December 1920 Robert was appointed an Associate Member of the Institute of Automobile Engineers. He worked at Alfred Stocken & Co. in South Kensington and then as a partner at C.F. Davey Cycle Co. in Croydon, Surrey. He was editor of Bath Road News (1921-1927) and from 1923 to 1927 was delegate to the Road Records Association, a cycle racing organisation which supervises records on the road but not in conventional races. He was also an active member of the Addiscombe Cycling Club, serving as Vice-President until 1935.
Following Robert and Matilda’s divorce in 1927, Robert was given custody of their only child, Patricia, and with his mother and sister set up home in Ditchling, East Sussex. Here he spent much of his time mending and collecting clocks and watches and in December 1933 was elected a member of the British Horological Institute. He also got involved in village activities, serving as Chairman of the local Horticultural Society, Vice-President of the Cricket Club, a member of the British Legion and the Home Guard, and briefly of the Fire Brigade.
Robert died at the Royal Sussex County Hospital on 16 April 1942, aged 59, and was buried at Ditchling where the inscription on his headstone provides his epitaph:
‘Motor Engineer. Founder of Bamford & Martin later to become Aston Martin. The clocks, folk and pubs of Ditchling will miss him. Also his mother Blanche Edith Myers 26 May 1856-5 Mar 1936.’
In 2013, Robert Bamford was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame.
With special thanks to John Paul Jacques, Steve Waddingham, and Michelle McDermott for generously sharing their research with me.
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