Originally published 2007, part of a series I did for a biography website. Can’t even remember who now, but it’s long gone.
David Thomson is among the richest people in the world, with a net worth approaching $25 billion USD. He is the current chairman of Thomson Reuters.
David Thomson was born June 12, 1957. His full title is “David Thomson, 3rd Baron Thomson of Fleet”, in the United Kingdom peerage system. He is the son of the late Kenneth Thomson, 2nd Baron Thomson of Fleet, and the grandson of the late Roy Thomson, 1st Baron Thomson of Fleet. The Thompson Baronage has traditionally made its fortune through the media publishing business.
To trace the progress of the family’s business, we must start in 1934, with Roy Thomson buying his first newspaper, the Timmins Press, in Timmins, Ontario, for a mere $200. By 1949, Roy Thompson had leveraged his business operations to encompass a wide array of companies, including radio stations and newspapers in various Ontario locations, along with hairdressers, a kitchen furnishings manufacturer, and a company that manufactures ice-cream cones, all within the Ontario area. By the 1950’s, he had acquired 19 newspapers, and had been elected to the position of president of the Canadian Daily Newspaper Publishers Association.
Through the late 1950’s and into the 1960’s, he bought STV Central Ltd., the commercial television franchise for Central Scotland. Roy Thomson described this transaction as “a license to print money” at the time. He went on to acquire more than 200 newspapers in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom, including the Kemsley group of newspapers, and ‘The Times’ newspaper from members of the Astor family. And at last in 1964, he was given the title “Baron Thomson of Fleet”, forsaking his Canadian citizenship and becoming a British citizen in the process.
He was succeeded by his son, Kenneth Thomson, born on September 1, 1923, who became chairman of the Thomson Corporation and inherited the Baronial title. Although he was entitled to the honor, Kenneth Thomson never took his seat in the House of Lords. Also, since he was born in Canada, he had Canadian citizenship, even while being a British Baron. He was quoted in an interview on this situation, explaining, “In London I’m Lord Thomson, in Toronto I’m Ken. I have two sets of Christmas cards and two sets of stationery.” During Kenneth Thompson’s reign, he achieved the status of the ninth-richest person in the world with assets of $19.6 billion USD. He also served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II.
Kenneth Thomson (who is not at all to be confused with the other Kenneth Thompson of the C programming language, Unix, and Bell Labs fame), maintained a very down-to-Earth life as an ordinary citizen, who was remarkable for never losing the commoner touch. He might be seen walking his dogs in the neighborhood, for instance, while wearing casual, worn-in clothes. In spite of this attitude, he nevertheless leveraged the Thompson corporate empire to even greater power, adding the “Globe and Mail” in Toronto, “The Times” and “Sunday Times” in Britain, and “The Jerusalem Post” in Israel. Most notably, he branched out into the book publishing business. This branch of the business became the famous Thomson Publication (UK), the leading publisher of textbooks and reference manuals. He also acquired Britannia Airways in 1965.
So at last we come to David Thomson, the third in the line of Barons of Fleet, who succeeded the title upon his father’s passing in 2006. David Thomson has not been idle in the interim, having worked in several companies controlled by his father’s empire, founded his own real estate business, real estate firm Osmington Incorporated, which operates separate from the Thompson Corporation, and having worked closely with the Art Gallery of Ontario. David Thomson has so far been very shy of the press, and so he is very private and seldom grants interviews. Nevertheless, he has so far assumed the duties of the Thompson Corporation with vigor, having just bought the news agency Reuters Group Limited to add to his vast holdings.
