B
owmer & Kirkland is very much
a family company. Our values,
ethos and culture are moulded
by the fact that we are fami-
ly-owned. We focus on our customers
and colleagues and part of our vision is to
ensure that we continue to re-invest our
resources into the Group.
Founded in 1923, the Group now consists
of 29 subsidiary companies or divisions,
offering a wide range of specialisms from
construction-related services to homeland
security products. All our companies fo-
cus on building long-term effective part-
nerships.
B&K now has in excess of 1400 staff oper-
ating from our Head Office in Derbyshire,
regional offices in Birmingham, Manches-
ter, Motherwell, Newark, Reading and
Sunderland and from offices in the USA.
All our staff are supported by our career
development plans and encouraged to be
all they can be.
Our business has a well balanced turno-
ver and is not dependant on one sector or
individual client and we have a network of
business units which are able to adapt to
the changing markets.
Bowmer & Kirkland has grown to be one
of the largest and most successful private-
ly owned construction, engineering and
development groups in the UK as a result
of our commitment to client satisfaction.
We were founded as a partnership in 1923
by Alfred Bowmer, a joiner and Robert
William Kirkland – a bricklayer. They
undertook general building works and
based themselves in the village of Heage in
Derbyshire.
Robert Kirkland died at the very young
age of 40 and his son Jack, then 15, had to
leave school and start earning to support
his family. He joined the company as an
apprentice joiner in 1928.
The company flourished and in 1941 Bow-
mer & Kirkland (Plant) Ltd was formed.
This company grew to have over 50 mo-
bile cranes, with one of the biggest in the
country – the 110-ton Lorain – within our
fleet.
In 1955, Jack Kirkland was appointed
Managing Director and six years later
the Bowmer & Kirkland partnership was
formed into a Limited company. Since
then the company has enjoyed growth and
success: