Eddie Stobart, the founder of the UK’s most renowned lorry firm, has died aged 95.
Eddie Pears Stobart, who started his first business in the 1940s, died on 25 November.
Born in 1929 in Cumbria, he set up a firm to distribute fertiliser in the 1950s, and bought his first lorry in the 1960s. But from the 1970s his name was plastered on trucks across the country thanks to the business nous of his son Edward.
He had his first lorry repainted in the now-famous post office red and Brunswick green.
Mr Stobart had grown the business to eight lorries by the 1970s, but it was when his son Edward took over after his father retired that the company expanded to the nationally-known brand.
Edward, who died in 2011 aged 56, had transformed the trucking firm into a 1000-vehicle logistics business by the time he sold it in the early 2000s, according to his obituary in the Guardian.
The company, which has been rebranded to Stobart, is now owned by the Culina Group.
According to an obituary inThe Times, Mr Stobart insisted he would never have named the company after himself if he knew it was going to become nationally famous.
Mr Stobart was a devout christian, and the Time said he met his future wife Nora at a Bible rally in Carlisle before marrying on Boxing Day in 1951.
Following his retirement from his lorry business in the 1970s, the couple lived near Carlisle and were active Church members.
The couple had four children: Anne, John, Edward and William. Mr Stobart is survived by his daughter and son William.
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