Stephen Eckersley Boler (23 August 19431998) was an English entrepreneur who founded a business dynasty and in later life became a conservationist in South Africa. He was born on 23 August 1943, in Middleton,

Heysham Heysham ( ) is a coastal town in Lancashire, England, overlooking Morecambe Bay. It is a Heysham Port, ferry port, with services to the Isle of Man and Ireland, and the site of two Heysham nuclear power station, nuclear power stations. Demogra ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

. Boler started as a 16-year-old trainee at the multinational

Unilever Unilever plc is a British multinational consumer goods company with headquarters in London, England. Unilever products include food, condiments, bottled water, baby food, soft drink, ice cream, instant coffee, cleaning agents, energy drink, t ...

. He made his first fortune in the 1970s, selling cut-price tyre and exhaust systems"Mark's £15m mission for Mere"
in ''

Manchester Evening News The ''Manchester Evening News'' (''MEN'') is a regional daily newspaper covering Greater Manchester in North West England, founded in 1868. It is published Monday–Saturday; a Sunday edition, the ''MEN on Sunday'', was launched in February 201 ...

''. 8 September 2010. together with business partner

Tom Farmer Sir Thomas Farmer, (born 10 July 1940) is a Scottish entrepreneur. Early life One of seven siblings in a devoutly Catholic family, in 1964 Farmer founded his own tyre retailing business which he sold in 1969 for £450,000. Farmer retired to ...

, who went on to launch the

Kwik-Fit Kwik Fit is a car servicing and repair company in the United Kingdom, specialising in tyres, brakes, exhausts, MOT testing, car servicing, air conditioning recharge, oil changes. As of , there are over six hundred Kwik Fit locations in the Uni ...

chain. One of the trainee managers at the time was later founder of the High Street buy-and-sell business

Cash Generator Cash Generator is a United Kingdom-based Buy and Sell store. Its headquarters are in Edinburgh, United Kingdom. The retailer opened its first store in Bolton in February 1994. The company has expanded, with corporate and franchise stores, and cur ...

, Brian Lewis, who credits Boler with a major impact on his business life. Boler went on to found Limelight, a kitchen and bathrooms business, making £40 million when he sold it."People & Business: Get Murdoch to call Mars"
by Francesco Guerrera. ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

''. Friday, 30 October 1998 Limelight, later known as the

HomeForm Group Founded in 2000, the HomeForm Group was one of the largest retailers of fitted home improvement products in the United Kingdom. The head office was in Cornbrook, Manchester. HomeForm operated several brands, namely Möben Kitchens, Sharps Bedroo ...

, included household names such as Dolphin Showers, Kitchens Direct, Moben Kitchens and Sharps Bedrooms. Homeform went into administration in 2011, and had quotes honoured by brand

Wren Kitchens Wren Kitchens is a privately owned British designer, manufacturer, and retailer of kitchens. It has 106 stores. History Wren Kitchens was founded in 2009. The management team behind Wren traded for 10 years in the United States before the ...

to protect consumer confidence in UK kitchen companies. In 1983, he bought

Mere Golf and Country Club Mere may refer to: Places * Mere, Belgium, a village in East Flanders * Mere, Cheshire, England * Mere, Wiltshire, England People * Mere Broughton (1938–2016), New Zealand Māori language activist and unionist * Mere Smith, American televisi ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...

, handing this over to his son Mark in 1994, when he was 22. Boler had separated from his wife, and his son, whom he sent to the

independent school An independent school is independent in its finances and governance. Also known as private schools, non-governmental, privately funded, or non-state schools, they are not administered by local, state or national governments. In British Eng ...

Millfield Millfield is a public school (English independent day and boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) located in Street, Somerset, England. It was founded in 1935. Millfield is a registered charity and is the largest co-educational boarding schoo ...

, recalls him as teaching lessons of working hard. Boler was the largest shareholder of

Manchester City Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The tw ...

football club. In later life, he turned his attention to conservation in South Africa, creating the

Tswalu Kalahari Reserve The Tswalu Kalahari Reserve is a privately owned game reserve in the Northern Cape, South Africa. It is South Africa's largest private game reserve, covering an area of over 111,000 hectares. History The Tswalu Game Reserve in the Southern Kala ...

in the

Kalahari Desert The Kalahari Desert is a large semi-arid sandy savanna in Southern Africa extending for , covering much of Botswana, and parts of Namibia and South Africa. It is not to be confused with the Angolan, Namibian, and South African Namib coastal de ...

. He bought dozens of farms covering more than a thousand square kilometres to create the reserve. His will specified that

Nicky Oppenheimer Nicholas F. Oppenheimer (born 8 June 1945) is a South African billionaire businessman. He was formerly the chairman of De Beers diamond mining company and of its subsidiary, the Diamond Trading Company, and former deputy chairman of Anglo Ame ...

, the South African entrepreneur, should have first refusal on Tswalu, and the Oppenheimer family now owns and operates it. Boler died in Johannesburg of a heart attack in 1998, aged 55, while traveling to his game reserve. Another son, Nick, died in 2004, aged 33. Boler also had two daughters, Sarah Jane and Camilla.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Boler, Stephen English businesspeople in retailing 1943 births 1998 deaths People from Heysham 20th-century English businesspeople