Kenneth Thomson, 2nd Baron Thomson of Fleet

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Kenneth Roy Thomson, 2nd Baron Thomson of Fleet (September 1, 1923 – June 12, 2006), known in Canada as Ken Thomson, was a Canadian-British businessman and art collector. He led a vast media and information empire built by his family.

Ken Thomson was born in Toronto, the son of Roy Thomson, who founded the Thomson Corporation. He studied economics and law at St. John’s College, Cambridge, and served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II. After the war, he worked in journalism and publishing, eventually rising to lead Thomson Newspapers in 1953 and living in Toronto for many years.

In the mid-1960s, his father bought The Times in London, and Thomson moved to London to become vice-chairman and then chairman of Times Newspapers. In 1971 he became joint-chairman of the Thomson Organization. When his father died in 1976, Thomson became chairman of the Thomson Corporation and inherited the title The Lord Thomson of Fleet. He never used the title in Canada and did not take a seat in the House of Lords.

Thomson grew his family business into a global media and information company. He added the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1979 and bought The Globe and Mail in 1980. He also oversaw major divestitures: selling The Times in 1981 to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, selling his North Sea oil interests in 1989, and selling Thomson Travel in 1998. In 2001, The Globe and Mail merged with BCE’s cable and TV assets (including CTV and The Sports Network) to form Bell Globemedia, with Thomson as a minority shareholder. The broader Thomson business later focused on information services, and the company began trading on the New York Stock Exchange in 2002 under the symbol TOC.

Thomson was also a prominent art collector. He began collecting Canadian works in the 1940s, especially Cornelius Krieghoff. In 1977 a report about his art collection drew international attention when a suspected forger visited his office. In 1989 he opened a gallery in Toronto to display his collection. In 2002, he announced he would donate about 2,000 artworks to the Art Gallery of Ontario, including major pieces like Paul Kane’s Scene in the Northwest and Peter Paul Rubens’ The Massacre of the Innocents. The gift helped inspire a major AGO expansion designed by architect Frank Gehry, along with significant additional gifts and endowments.

Thomson stepped down as chairman of Thomson Corporation in 2002, passing the role to his son David, while remaining chairman of The Woodbridge Company, the family’s holding company. He lived in Toronto in his later years and died there on June 12, 2006, at his office, from an apparent heart attack.

Personal life:
Thomson married Nora Marilyn Lavis in 1956. They had three children: David (born 1957), Lynne (who later used the name Taylor, born 1959), and Peter (born 1965). Lynne Taylor later became known for a notable lawsuit involving Christie’s auction house.