Eddie Stobart

Edward Stobart was born in Cumbria in England in November 1954 and grew up living on Eddie's farm near Carlisle. He was very interested in lorries and when he left school he started working with his father's lorries delivering agricultural material in the locality. By 1970 the company consisted of three main parts - fertilizers, haulage and a farm shop. The various parts were split up between the family members, with Edward having haulage and the name 'Eddie Stobart Ltd'.

In 1976 Edward and the 8 lorries moved to Carlisle itself to be nearer the M6 motorway. A lot of hard work, never declining an order and a paranoia about keeping his lorries immaculately clean eventually paid off and he started to get orders from larger businesses.

The company grew, slowly at first but by the year 2000 it had 1000 lorries and owned a couple of dozen storage depots around the UK. Since each lorry has a life (before disposal) of three years this means that the company is roughly purchasing a new lorry every single day.

One of Edward's quaint habbits was to name his lorry cabs with female names. The first being Twiggy, then Tammy (Wynette), Dolly (Parton) and Suzi (Quatro).

Because his lorries have a very distinctive livery and because the cabs are named, many members of the general public started to collect Stobart lorries to the extent that a fan club formed itself, eventually supported by the company who arrange depot tours and lorry rides and sell model lorries etc.

Eddie Stobart Ltd is now the largest privately owned (non-plc) haulage company in Britain with a turnover of around £150M per annum.

The Stobart family are strongly religious and have donated much of their wealth to local churches.