Sir Anthony Bamford, the chairman of JCB, has been appointed a conservative peer and will sit in the UK parliament’s upper house, the House of Lords, Downing Street has announced.
Membership to the House of Lords was once reserved for Lords and Ladies who qualified by birthright. While 90 hereditary seats of the 800-plus seat house remain, the majority of its members are now nominated by the prime minister or its appointment committee and approved by the UK monarch.
Sir Anthony took over control of JCB in the mid-1970s from his father Joseph Cyril Bamford and is considered a leading industrialist in the UK with his privately-owned company a rare manufacturing success over the past four decades. 
