Jimi Heselden

James William "Jimi" Heselden OBE (27 March 1948 – 26 September 2010) was a British entrepreneur. A former coal miner, Heselden became wealthy by manufacturing the Hesco bastion barrier system. In 2009, he bought Segway Inc., maker of the Segway personal transport system. Heselden died in 2010 from injuries apparently sustained falling from a cliff while riding his own product. His estate, bequeathed to his widow and family, was worth over £340 million and he was ranked in the top 400 members of the ''Sunday Times Rich List''.

Early life

Heselden grew up in the Halton Moor district of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. At the age of 15, Heselden left Osmondthorpe Secondary Modern School to work as a labourer and then at collieries in Temple Newsam and Lofthouse. He lost his job in the wave of redundancies that followed the 1984–85 miners' strike and spent his redundancy money on renting a workshop and, at first, setting up a sandblasting business. He then worked on developing and patenting a collapsible wire mesh and fabric container, now called Hesco bastion, to be used for building flood management and to limit erosion.

Career

In 1989, Heselden founded Hesco Bastion Ltd to manufacture containers of the same name; filled with sand or earth, they quickly found favour with the armies of several countries, as they allowed effective blast walls, barriers and revetments to be quickly constructed. Made in Hesco's factory in Leeds, these were shipped (flat-packed) in great numbers to conflict zones, including Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as later being used for flood defences at New Orleans. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2006 Queen's Birthday Honours, "for services to the Defence industry and to Charity."

On Christmas day 2009, Heselden purchased the Segway company. He had owned the company for only nine months at the time of his accidental death while using a Segway.

Philanthropy

In 2008, Heselden donated £1.5 million to the Help For Heroes fund through a charity auction bid for nine people to fly with the Red Arrows. Heselden said, "There are people out there who are making money and when times are good I honestly believe people have a moral obligation to use their wealth to help others."

Also in 2008, Heselden contributed £10 million to setting up the Leeds Community Foundation; he would later donate an additional £13 million.

Death

On the morning of 26 September 2010, Heselden was killed when he fell from a cliff footpath into the River Wharfe, at the village of Thorp Arch near Boston Spa. Along the path, "a rugged country version" of Segway was found.

The West Yorkshire Coroner concluded that Heselden had died of "multiple blunt force injuries of the chest and spine consistent with a fall whilst riding a gyrobike".

See also

* List of unusual deaths

References

External links

*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Heselden, Jimi
Businesspeople from Leeds
English philanthropists
Officers of the Order of the British Empire
Accidental deaths in England
Accidental deaths from falls
1948 births
2010 deaths
People from Halton Moor
20th-century British philanthropists
20th-century English businesspeople