Doncaster billionaire among UK's wealthiest on annual Sunday Times Rich List

Businessman Baron Graham Kirkham, who founded the DFS furniture empire, is ranked second in the north of England by the newsaper, with an estimated wealth for him and his family of £1.14 billion.

The only higher entry is pioneering Portaloo entrepreneurs, the Shepherd family, which the List gives them a worth of £1.35 billion.

Born and educated in Doncaster, Baron Kirkham, now 80, founded the company that became DFS in 1969.

Adopted at the age of three weeks, he is the only son of Edlington miner Tom Kirkham and his wife Elsie and after passing the Eleven Plus exam, he attended Maltby Grammar School and hoped to join the Royal Air Force as a pilot.

But failing to get the required five O levels, Kirkham got a job in a local furniture store which led to his future business success.

In 1969, having visited a few manufacturers in his daily work, he decided that making furniture was relatively easy and that by cutting out the warehouse dealers in the middle of the supply chain, he could sell direct to the public at cheaper prices.

Kirkham rented a room above a snooker hall in Carcroft, and started making furniture upstairs and retailing it downstairs, forming the firm called Northern Upholstery.

By 1983, Darley Dale–based Direct Furnishing Supplies had become one of Northern Upholstery’s biggest suppliers.

When Direct Furnishing Supplies went bankrupt with debts of £900,000, Kirkham bought it, renaming it DFS and taking on the chain’s stores and staff.

In 1993, DFS was floated on the stock market and valued at £271 million.

The news brought the Kirkham family to the attention of thieves, who in 1994 broke into the family home at Sprotbrough while they were on holiday. The burglars bound and gagged the housekeeper and made off with money and jewels worth £2.4m – later recovered, but still South Yorkshire's largest armed robbery.

In April 2010, DFS was sold to private equity firm Advent International for a reported £500m. He also owns a stake in Iceland supermarket as well as Doncaster’s Whitby’s fish and chip restaurant chain.

A strong political and financial supporter of the Conservative Party, Baron Kirkham donated more than £4 million in loans to the party by the mid 1990s, receiving a knighthood in 1996.

In 1999, he was made a life peer as Baron Kirkham, of Old Cantley in the County of South Yorkshire.

He lives in the Grade II*-listed Georgian mansion Cantley Hall which he bought in 1990 from motor dealer John Carnell, and which is reportedly decorated with artworks by the likes of John Constable, Thomas Gainsborough and Édouard Manet.

In 2024, he became the first person to be given the Freedom of the Borough after Doncaster attained city status.

The accolade is the highest honour that a local resident can receive and recognises their achievements and support in the Doncaster community.

The honour recognised his help for both local and national charities and his many accolades include a knighthood in 1996 for charitable service, a CVO from HM Queen Elizabeth II in 2001 and a second knighthood (KCVO) in 2021 recognising his decades long commitment and Chairmanship of The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Charity.

Others to have received the award include Last Of The Summer Wine writer Roy Clarke, former Doncaster Council leader Gordon Gallimore, former union chief Rodney Bickerstaff, Doncaster Youth Jazz Association founder John Ellis, Doncaster Cancer Detection Trust stalwart Jeanette Fish, opera singer Lesley Garrett, The Venerable Robert A Fitzharris, fairground supremo Roger Tuby, boxer and marathon runner Tommy Joyce, jazz star Dennis Rollins former school head Tony Storey, Olympic tae kwondo star Sarah Stephenson and former mayors Tony Sockett and Yvonne Woodcock, as well as Afghanistan war hero Ben Parkinson and Doncaster Rovers legend James Coppinger.

This weekend’s 76-page special edition of The Sunday Times Magazine reveals the wealth of the 350 richest people in Britain, as well as The Sunday Times Giving List in association with the Charities Aid Foundation.

Full details of this year’s Rich List can be found HERE

Robert Watts, compiler of the Sunday Times Rich List, said: “The Sunday Times Rich List is changing. Our billionaire count is down and the combined wealth of those who feature in our research is falling. We are also finding fewer of the world’s super rich are coming to live in the UK.”

The 2025 Sunday Times Rich List is the definitive guide to wealth in the UK. It charts the wealth of the 350 richest people in the UK.

The list is based on identifiable wealth, including land, property, other assets such as art and racehorses, or significant shares in publicly quoted companies.

It excludes bank accounts, to which the paper has no access. The magazine includes several interviews and features, focused on some of the leading players and personalities among the richest 350, as well as a full ranking by order of wealth.