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. History Ruston and Hornsby 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. For many years all the vehicles were powered by R & H diesel engines. R & H had also previously made road rollers, but concentrated this all at Grantham. Aveling-Barford was listed on the London Stock Exchange in July 1937. Public company 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