SIR JAMES DYSON, the inventor who convinced the world that vacuum cleaners could be fun, has given £45m of his fortune to his three children.

Each of the Dyson offspring, all in their thirties, have received £15m from a shares deal, according to documents filed at Companies House. The arrangement bucks the trend for well-known entrepreneurs to make ostentatious donations to charity and bequeath little to their children.

The shares scheme also netted £105m for the 62-year-old entrepreneur and champion of British design, who is best known for the bagless vacuum cleaner.

The Dyson siblings have all built their careers independently from their father in recent years.

Sam Dyson, 31, the youngest of the three, is a songwriter and lead guitarist with the Chemists, an indie band now on tour with Skunk Anansie, the recently reformed 1990s rock band. The Chemists’ music is regularly used by Sky Sports to accompany football and rugby coverage.

Shortly after the shares buy-back deal went through, Sam won planning permission to convert a barn at his farmhouse near Bath that he bought for £2.9m, into a recording studio.

Soon afterwards he founded Distiller Records, his own record label, which he has set up to help aspiring musicians.

“Sam’s a wonderful guy to work with — very creative and a great songwriter,” said Gideon Palmer, a fellow director of the label, which has signed up six bands.

“It’s got harder and harder for young bands to get a contract in the current climate. We’re giving young bands all the support they need to make it.”

Sam’s older sister Emily, 38, runs a fashionable London boutique called Couverture, selling clothes and accessories.

Couverture’s range includes cashmere tea cosies, complete with pompoms, priced at £45. The store also sells leather ankle boots retailing at £479 and a hand-painted scarf with signature crochet trim at £309.

Emily founded Couverture in Chelsea 10 years ago. She had previously spent four years working for Paul Smith, the fashion designer.

Shortly after the Dyson share deal last year, Emily moved her store to larger premises in Notting Hill, west London. Jake Dyson, 37, designs and makes floor and wall lights that use motors to vary the width of the beam, causing a room “to feel like it is lifting and breathing”.

Jake has bought a house in Camden, north London, for £5.6m.

The Dysons get their windfalls from a buy-back transaction of the Dyson company’s shares. The latest accounts show that on February 22, 2008, 499 of the firm’s shares were purchased by the company for £150m. Separate documents show that 349 of these shares were owned by James and his three children.

The deal took place shortly before the capital gains tax levied on such deals was increased from 10% to 18%.

An adviser to the company familiar with the transaction said: “Good on James and his family. When entrepreneurs build companies from scratch they work long hours and their children don’t see so much of them.

“I think it’s good to hear of a parent providing for his family in this way.”

In recent years many of the world’s wealthiest people have said they will leave only modest inheritances to their children.

Last year Bill Gates, whose Microsoft empire dominates the computer industry, said he would leave all his $58 billion (£35 billion) fortune to charity. Asked why he would not leave his earnings to his children, he said: “It’s like saying which children are most important. We want to give it back to society in the way that it will have the most positive impact.”

Earlier this year, Duncan Bannatyne, one of the entrepreneurs who appears on the BBC’s Dragons’ Den, said he would give all his £310m estate to charity on his death.

This weekend a spokesman for Dyson said: “For the past 35 years the family have been involved in the company, supporting it through hard times.

“It’s only natural that James should want to look after their future.”