The official ceremony took place at the Institution’s Ordinary Meeting on 9 December, at One Birdcage Walk.
Institution President, Professor Richard Folkson BSc (Eng) CEng FIMechE ACGI told assembled guests: “As an automotive engineer, it gives me great pleasure to welcome two engineering luminaries to our illustrious list of Honorary Fellows.”
Ratan N Tata expressed his “gratitude” and “thanks” for the honour and said it would be “something he would cherish”.
Lord Bamford said he was “touched”, “deeply honoured and delighted” to be recognised in such a way. He added that he felt it was his “wonderful” engineers at JCB who really deserved to be recognised.
“I am delighted that many of our engineers have already joined the Institution and I hope to encourage many more to do so,” Lord Bamford said.
The Institution’s CEO, Stephen Tetlow MBE, gave the citation.
The ceremony was followed by an insightful Thomas Hawksley Prestige Lecture, presented by Juergen Maier, CEO of Siemens, on the topic: ‘Can the UK seed a new Industrial Revolution?’.
After the lecture, the President chaired a discussion and the Institution’s Vice-President Dr Clive Hickman BSc PhD MBA DSc (Hon) CEng FIMechE FREng gave the vote of thanks.
About Ratan N Tata GBE
Ratan N Tata was the Chairman of Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata group, from 1991 until his retirement on 28 December 2012.
He now holds the position of Chairman Emeritus which is an honorary and advisory position. He continues as the chairman of the group’s charitable trusts.
He was also chairman of the major Tata companies, including Tata Motors, Tata Steel, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Power, Tata Global Beverages, Tata Chemicals, Indian Hotels and Tata Teleservices.
Ratan Tata joined the family business in 1962, working on the Tata Steel shopfloor at Jamshedpur, just one of several thousand employees.
In 1991, Ratan was appointed as the chairman of the Tata group. Under his stewardship, Tata Tea acquired Tetley; Tata Motors acquired Jaguar Land Rover and Tata Steel acquired Corus; which have turned Tata from a largely India-centric company into a global business, with 65% revenues coming from abroad. He also pushed the development of the Tata Indica and the Tata Nano.
He is chairman emeritus of Tata Sons, Tata Motors, Tata Steel and a few other group companies. He is also the chairman of two of the largest private-sector-promoted philanthropic trusts in India – the Sir Dorabji Tata and Allied Trusts and Sir Ratan Tata Trust which together hold 66% of shares in the group holding company Tata Sons.
Ratan is also associated with various organisations in India and overseas. He is the chairman of the Council of Management of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. He also serves on the board of trustees of Cornell University and the University of Southern California. Mr Tata serves on the board of directors of Alcoa, and is also on the international advisory boards of Mitsubishi Corporation, JP Morgan Chase, Rolls-Royce, Temasek Holdings and the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
He received the Padma Bhushan in 2000 and Padma Vibhushan in 2008 and Lifetime Achievement Award awarded by Rockefeller Foundation in 2012. In 2014, Mr. Tata was given an honorary knighthood, the Knight Grand Cross of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (GBE).
He has also received honorary doctorates from several universities in India and overseas.
About the Lord Bamford DL
Lord Bamford, formerly Sir Anthony Bamford, has been Chairman of JCB since the end of 1975, succeeding his father, the late Joseph Cyril Bamford CBE, HonFIMechE, who founded the company on the day his son was born on 23 October 1945.
Under Lord Bamford’s leadership, JCB has grown to become one of the world’s largest construction equipment manufacturers.
Based on his belief in the importance of product he has built an engineering-driven organisation and culture which prizes innovation, and has become one of the powerhouses of R&D in the UK.
JCB is a highly vertically-integrated operation, manufacturing the cabs, chassis, hydraulic rams, manual and automatic transmissions, axles and engines for most of its machines – all engineered in house.
JCB entered into diesel engine production in 2004 and the JCB Dieselmax engine is the only engine that meets the stringent European Stage 3b emissions norms without exhaust after-treatment making it the cleanest in the industry. The engine is manufactured both in the UK and India.
Lord Bamford personally inspired the project that resulted in the JCB Dieselmax car, powered by two JCB engines, setting the current world land speed record for a diesel-powered car at 350mph set on the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah, USA in August 2006. The Institution was heavily engaged in the promotion of engineering linked to this unique vehicle.
JCB exports more than 75% of its UK-built machines to 150 countries around the world. The group has a global manufacturing footprint comprising eleven plants in the UK, five in India where JCB is market leader, and single plants in USA, Brazil and China.
An independent report by Oxford Economics recently concluded that JCB provides indirect employment worth 18,000 jobs in the UK, in addition to the 6,000 directly employed by JCB itself.
JCB has won more than 50 premier awards for exports, marketing, design, technology and for its care for the environment, among them 27 Queen’s Awards for Technological and Export achievement.
Lord Bamford spearheaded the establishment of The JCB Academy in Rocester, which opened in September 2010, a £22 million project to create the next generation of young engineers and businesspeople.
His maiden speech in the House of Lords (2014) started with the words: ”My Lords, I am an engineer and a manufacturer – a manufacturer of construction and agricultural machinery. I have spent my whole life making things – that that enable other people to make still more things.
During his career through personal leadership and engagement with engineers of all disciplines Lord Bamford has built the success story that is JCB, and has been one of the strongest ambassadors for British engineering. He is also a champion for manufacturing and education.
Lord Bamford’s career began with a two year engineering apprenticeship at Massey Ferguson in France before he started at the JCB World Headquarters in Rocester, Staffordshire, in 1964.
Lord Bamford himself has been recipient of Young Exporter of the Year (1972), Young Businessman of the Year (1979) and Top Exporter of the Year (1995). He was appointed a UK Trade & Industry Business ambassador in 2011.
He was knighted in 1990, was a former High Sheriff and is a Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Staffordshire. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Agricultural Engineers (2003) and an Honorary Fellow of The City and Guilds Institute (1993) and the Institution of Engineering Designers (2008). He is a Chevalier, l’Ordre National du Mérite (France 1989) and Commendatore al merito della Repubblica Italiana (Italy
1995).
Lord Bamford was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2014.
He is active in charitable work through the Bamford Charitable Foundation, established in 1979 to support charities and needy causes, particularly in Staffordshire. The Foundation gives quietly and generously to many organisations.
Read the full list of
Honorary Fellows of the Institution.