Our Service

Our Founder Charles Stearn

To the wholesale industry Stearn are known as ‘The wholesaler’s wholesaler’. We are a super distributor to the electrical industries wholesale trade, and specialist distributer to many other industries.

Holding huge ranges of stock in depth can be a costly business for wholesalers, this is where our policy of Your ‘Other’ Warehouse offers to stock replenish the wholesale trade efficiently and effectively from an extensive range of stock from our 14 business’.

We serve all regional areas in the UK and Northern Ireland, with a commitment to providing a comprehensive service which includes a next day delivery to our customers for all their electrical requirements.

Products
Stearn Electric represents in excess of 120 leading manufacturers. The foundation behind the business and its strong and long established relationships with major suppliers, means that we can meet the needs of the developing electrical market. It is testament that Stearn is relied upon by our customer base for communication of new products and market trends all of which goes to support the growth of the industry.

The extensive brand range, which includes some of our own, are detailed in our quarterly publication ‘The’ Price Guide, which extends to more than 340 pages and has become an essential tool to any person in the electrical wholesale trade.

As well as our well established industry known catalogue ‘The’ Price Guide we have recently introduced extensive support documents in the form of brochures and catalogues which focus

on specific categories within our large selection of products.

Stearn also prides itself on supporting the electrical wholesale industry by offering dedicated branded literature on behalf of its customers.

History

Stearn is a company with a fine history – the company has grown over the intervening years into a National Super Distributor, with an exceptionally guarded reputation for good service and excellent customer relations.

Charles Stearn was the founder of Stearn Electric……..

1874

Charles Stearn was an amateur scientist, an expert in his time on vacuum pumps. He met Charles Topham, who was helping his father blow glass for Stearns development of spectrum tubes and radionmeters.

1878

Charles Stearn assisted Sir Joseph Swan to develop a method of processing that removed all the air from the bulb to avoid it blackening he took the carbon filaments from Swan’s experiments and inserted them in tubes made by Topham, the first bulb was demonstrated in 1878 and Swan went on to patent his findings, Swan's house was the first in the world to be lit by a light bulb, thus the first house in the world to be lit by Hydro Electric power!

1898

Charles Stearn and Charles Topham also developed the continuous filament spinning process and the machinery needed to wash and collect the viscose yarns, Stearn patented filament manufacture. This was a revolution for spinning viscose thread into artificial silk.

1907

Charles Stearn formed Stearn Electric Lamp Company in 1907, and manufactured light bulbs (lamps) and became a key supplier to the Electrical Wholesale industry.

1924

Stearn Electric Co Ltd was fully founded in 1924. The story begins.