It was his father who started the family haulage business, but it was under Edward Stobart’s energetic leadership that the company expanded hugely and became an instantly familiar name on British roads. His flair for marketing and brand awareness, even while ridiculing such concepts, put Stobart ahead of its competitors.
Among his many innovations was the design of a distinctive livery for the company’s vehicles — Brunswick green and Post Office red with his father’s name emblazoned down the side in the largest type possible. He also started a fan club for “Eddie spotters” which grew from a realisation that families with children often passed long car journeys by counting particular vehicles. The musician Jools Holland may have handed Stobart the idea when he admitted in an interview that he and his band-mates passed away hours on tour looking for the firm’s lorries. There was a keen rivalry between Stobart followers and those who chose to “spot” the lorries of his French competitor Norbert Dentressangle.
At the height of the fan club’s popularity it boasted 25,000 members; there was a cartoon series for children, and Carlisle United football club appeared at Wembley in a strip inspired by the colours of the firm’s lorries.
Stobart was proud of his capacity for hard work, his lack of higher education and the attention he paid to detail in the running of the company. Cleaners were employed to make sure the fleet looked as spotless as possible as it thundered up and down the motorways of Britain. Drivers had to wear a company uniform and were fined if they were seen on duty without a tie. All the vehicles were given women’s names — chosen by Stobart himself.
The company was launched by Edward Stobart Sr — always known as Eddie — in 1960 as a delivery business for farms in Cumbria.
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His son Edward, never called Eddie, was born in Hesket Newmarket, near Carlisle in 1954 and quickly showed the same entrepreneurial spirit as his father. Conscious of but undaunted by his stutter, he started his own business at 10 selling firewood. In two years he was selling 50 bags a week and, he later claimed, earning more than some of his father’s drivers. He joined the family business after leaving school at 15 and, working 20-hour days, set about a rapid expansion of the company.
Impatient to make his mark, he split the company into two, leaving his father to deal with agricultural deliveries while he took over the running of the road haulage business. With a relentless capacity for hard work — he regularly slept in the office and cleaned his own lorry — he soon began to acquire important contracts, one of the first being with Metal Box. At the peak of its success in the 1990s a large part of the business involved the delivery of food to the big supermarket chains and was an operation of considerable logistical complexity. His vehicles would pick up empty cans from manufactures, store them at Stobart warehouses, then deliver them to the drinks manufactures for filling. From there they would be taken on to supermarkets. An error in the chain could send the wrong lorry with the wrong consignment to the wrong store.
“The secret is never to have an empty truck,” Stobart said. “If you take lemonade down somewhere, bring water back. The trucks must be 100 per cent loaded all the time.”
His brother William joined the company in 1979, and Stobart believed that a turning point in the company’s fortunes had come with the recession of the early 1980s when some large organisations dropped their own distribution operations and contracted out distribution to companies such as Stobart’s.
In 1997 he opened a computerised warehouse and transport centre at the Daventry rail and freight terminal. Concerned about increasing road congestion he began to make plans to move into rail freight.
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He was unequivocal about the secret of his success: “Our vehicles are all very smart and our drivers are very professional. They have Stobart stamped right through them. At one time if you weren’t a big, rough sweaty type with tattoos and a beer belly, you weren’t a truck driver. But we deal largely in the food and drink market and so cleanliness and image are very important.”
In 1999 he was at the forefront of protests against rising fuel prices, although he did not allow his lorries to join the blockade of petrol stations. Two years later he was the subject of a biography by Hunter Davies who called him “the greatest living Cumbrian”.
In 2003 he surprised the business world by announcing the sale of the company to WA Developments (International), a property development and civil engineering business. His brother William had left two years earlier to join WA Developments, a company run by Andrew Tinkler, his brother-in-law. Subsequently the company has expanded into other sectors, and the distinctive Stobart lorries are still a fixture on British roads.
Edward Stobart separated from his first wife, Sylvia, in 1996. They had four adopted children. He later married Mandy and they had two children. He is survived by his wife and six children.
Edward Stobart, haulage contractor, was born on November 21, 1954. He died after being admitted to hospital with heart problems, on March 31, 2011, aged 56