Lord Thomson: tough press baron

Press, 5 August 1976, Page 4

Lord Thomson: tough press baron

NZPA-Reuter London Lord Thomson of Fleet, who died in a London hospital yesterday at the age of 82, represented a spectacular successs story in international journalism: a selfmade Canadian-born millionaire who preferred work to leisure, even in his old age. He once said, “I would rather take a balance-sheet home to read than a book.” Lord Thomson, a stocky, blue-eyed, bespectacled publisher. owned 200 newspapers in 10 countries by 1972. His television interests extended to 16 countries and his radio enterprises to 10 countries. Despite his unassuming appearance — friendly and willing to trade jokes on every occasion — he was recognised as a tough, shrewd businessman, with a reputation for buying financially failing newspapers and making them profitable. In most of his ventures, he handled the business side and left it to his editors to produce a readable newspaper. At a London dinner in June. 1972, to celebrate his seventy-eighth birthday, he disclosed that he had not known 18 years earlier whether to return to the land of his forbears in Britain or to buy a bank in Florida. He decided against the bank

career because, he said, “after all. newspapers are my life. I have no regrets.” Six months earlier, Lord Thomson told a luncheon meeting in Toronto, where he was born: “Were I 25 years younger. I would go to Asia and make my headquarters there . . . there is no limit to the business opportunities in Asia.”

He added: “I’ll do anything to make money now as long as I make money in a respectable manner.”

Business opportunities in China, with its huge population, he said, were almost beyond imagination. His climb from a poor Canadian family to become the wealthy publisher of “The Times,” the “Sunday Times,” and many other notable newspapers was ascribed by his associates to an ability for hard work as a businessman. long hours, and a hunger for success. The Thomson organisation also owned magazines, book publishing companies, insurance firms, hotels, an airline, and 11 trucking companies as well as having television and radio interests. The then British Prime Minister, Mr Edward Heath, said in 1972 that Lord Thomson personified the ideal of Individual enterprise. Roy Herbert Thomson,

bom in Toronto on June 5, 1894, was the son of a barber, Herbert Thomson, who had Scottish ancestors. Roy’s mother, the former Alice Maud Coombs, was bom in Western England. Young Roy attended schools in Toronto, leaving at 14 to become a poorly paid clerk. He returned later to a Toronto business school for a short time and in succession became a salesman, farmer, stenographer, and bookkeeper.

The young Canadian, who enjoyed making money and banking it for the future, invested in an industrial firm and became its Toronto manager.

Poor eyesight kept him out of overseas service in World War I, but he gained the rank of lieutenant in the Canadian militia. He did not make his major imprint on the business world until the Depression, when he was a radio salesman. Because of poor reception in northern Ontario, he set up his own tiny broadcasting station with a second-hand transmitter, placed in the dressing room of a local theatre.

This not only enabled him to sell more sets but provided an income for advertising revenue. About the same time, he took over a

local weekly newspaper in settlement of a bad debt. Within 10 years, he owned a chain of small city evening newspapers stretching from Vancouver to Quebec, as well as three radio stations. His informality with his staff led them to call him “Uncle Roy.” In 1953 he flew to Scotland in search of new fields to conquer. At the age of 60 and already a millionaire, he acquired control of the “Scotsman” group of newspapers, then in financial difficulties.

He made his home in Edinburg and eventually became a British citizen. He even had his own tartan designed, and was granted a coat of arms in 1958. His motto on the coat of arms was. “Never a backward step.” There were few backward steps or failures in his ventures after that time. Money continued to pour in, much of which he gave to charity. He gained the commercial television licence for Scotland, largely financed by himself. In 1959, he took over the the largest in Britain, the Kemsley newspaper group, the largest in Britain, with the help of his income from North American newspapers. His first action as head of the Kemsley group was to ex-

pand the organisation and give the editors greater freedom.

In 1962, Lord Thomson launched the “Sunday Times” colour magazine, the first of its kind in Britain. It proved a great success and was followed in format by other British national newspapers. He was created a baron and chose the title of Lord Thomson of Fleet of Northbridge in the city of Edinburgh. He took his seat in the House of Lords in March, 1964, as a hereditary peer. Lord Thomson has used his fortune partly to finance repertory theatres and other artistic causes but mainly for the Thomson Foundation, a charitable trust. Its aim is to encourage vocational training, especially for the news media in developing countries.

One of the trustees is his son and heir, Kenneth Roy Thomson. Lord Thomson also has a married daughter, Mrs Phyllis Audrey Campbell. His wife, the former Edna Annis Irvine, whom he married in 1916, died in 1951. Lord Thomson, regretted giving up his Canadian citizenship to become a British hereditary baron. But he said he hoped he could make a worth-while contribution to the House of Lords. He once said: “I look on myself as a Scot • . and lam going to die in Scotland.”