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6 Comments

news

Kenneth Thomson Makes His Own Headlines

By Rob Shostak

2006_06_13thomson.jpg
Billionaire Kenneth Thomson, Canada’s richest person, has died at age 82. He was ranked ninth on the Forbes magazine list of the world’s wealthiest individuals with an estimated fortune of $19.6 billion.
His family began their fortune through small radio stations in northern Ontario. After serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War, Thomson attended Cambridge University and later joined his father in the newspaper business, becoming a newspaper mogul, with a stake in The Globe and Mail here in Canada and The Times in the UK.
Thomson was also a firm believer in the arts, and became the greatest benefactor to the Art Gallery of Ontario. His personal collection includes about 1,500 works by Canadian art stars, including Tom Thomson, Cornelius Krieghoff, Emily Carr and David Milne. He also broke his own auction records for the highest price ever paid for a Canadian painting.
David Silox of Sotheby’s Canada: “He was a straight, honest, affable and knowledgeable man to deal with and you could always be straightforward with him and that’s the way he liked it to be.”
[photo: Ken Thomson and Frank Ghery - Bernard Weil from The Toronto Star]

Comments

  • Jameso

    He began his fortune with his family’s half-billion pound stash and hereditary title- the 2nd Lord Thomson of Fleet was entitled to sit in the House of Lords. Small radio station or no, he was already off to a fast start.
    But we should be really grateful for the money he spent on the arts in Canada and the UK, allowing some of the world’s greatest treasures to stay at ‘home’.

  • hey

    Roy Thomson sold radios in Northern Ontario and bought the radio station in North Bay to try and sell more radios. One thing led to another, he bought some newspapers, kept expanding, ended up in the UK buying The Scotsman and The Time, got the private TV license in Scotland, was granted an hereditary title, got involved in Oil exploration in the North Sea.
    Ken worked at the firm and gained experience, and turned the fortune he inherited into one of the largest in the world. Like Galen Weston, he has done tremendously well in business, expanding on an already substantial empire.
    It’s not like there were more than 20 pages of this story in the Toronto newspapers or anything! Somebody needs to work on their reading comprehension. This is bloody embarrassing. Next you’ll be telling us that George W. Bush was Reagan’s VP!

  • John

    “After serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War, he attended Cambridge University and later joined his father’s in the newspaper business: evolving to become a newspaper mogul, including a stake in The Globe and Mail here in Canada and The Times in the UK.”
    Thomson sounds like a great guy and I’m grateful that you’ve covered this, but the sentence above is really quite horribly constructed. The colon is both unnecessary and completely misused, and “…joined his father’s in…” is simply an embarassing and amature mistake.
    Throughout this article there’s a fair bit of awkward phrasing, as there also is in Robonto’s other articles. They’re interesting and I hope to read more, but please TOist, take a few minutes on the editing.

  • Rob

    Robonto is just getting the hang of things down at Torontoist. I was born speaking French… it’s a blessing, it’s a curse. Efforts will be doubled, nay tripled to translate my thoughts better.

  • Rob

    Pshhhh. everybody knows that George W. Bush is arguable the best president the United States ever had… but it was his father, George (H.) W. Bush who was Regan’s VP. (Blessed be his memory and God Bless America.)

  • http://www.flickr.com/photos/dstopping David Topping

    wrt typos: we’re (Torontoist) on it. no worries.