Alfred Bellamy MI Mech E (1862-1945)
WHEN Alfred Rowe Bellamy died as Grantham’s last remaining Freeman of the Borough, the town owed him a debt it could never repay.
It was only his intervention in 1930 which prevented the town’s major employer Ruston & Hornsby from closing down the Grantham works and transferring everything to Lincoln.
Had that happened, it would have been catastrophic.
He was a director of the company, and it was for his services to the town he was made a freeman in 1937, only the fifth to receive the honour.
Raised in the Isle of Man, his advent into engineering arose through an accident on a penny farthing cycle. He came from a poor family who couldn’t afford to buy him one, so he built his own.
Out on it one day, he nearly collided with a pedestrian who turned out to be the manager of a local factory. He was so impressed with Alfred’s work, he offered him an apprenticeship in Manchester.
He specialised in gas engines and became a director of Andrews of Stockport. When that company merged with Richard Hornsby & Sons in 1905, he came to Grantham.
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