Kenneth Thomson (born 1923) represented the second generation of a powerful and influential print and broadcast journalism family that had significant impact in both Great Britain and North America.

Born on September 1, 1923, in Toronto, Ontario, as the third child and only son of Edna and Roy Thomson, Kenneth Thomson inherited and then expanded the international business established by his father. In the 1984 book, The Thomson Empire, Susan Goldenberg chronicled the life of Roy Thomson as a failed auto parts dealer who rose to the British title Lord Thomson of Fleet, owner of the London Times and Sunday Times and a 20 percent owner of North Sea oil fields.

Kenneth Thomson married Nora Marilyn Lavis Thomson, and they had three children, David, Lynne, and Peter. The Thomsons lived quiet lives, with a large home in Toronto and a house in Kensington Palace Gardens in London. Kenneth Thomson used his title, Lord...