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'Licence To Print Money'

Ever wondered where some of the popular sayings come from and what they mean? Well over the next few weeks we thought we would explore some of our industries sayings and meanings and where they come from.

This weeks it is the saying 'Licence To Print Money', read below and learn about its origin and impress your friends next time you go out for a drink.

Roy Herbert Thomson, 1st Baron Thomson of Fleet GBE

(June 5, 1894 – August 4, 1976) was a Canadian newspaper

proprietor and media entrepreneur.


Roy Herbert Thomson was born in Toronto, Ontario.
           
During World War I, Roy Thomson attended a business college, and owing to bad eyesight he was rejected by the army. He went to Manitoba after the war to become a farmer, but was unsuccessful. Thomson travelled to Toronto again, where he held several jobs at different times; one of which was selling radios.

 In 1934, Thomson acquired his first newspaper. With a down payment of $200 he purchased the Timmins Daily Press, in Timmins, Ontario. He would begin an expansion of both radio stations and newspapers in various Ontario locations in partnership with fellow Canadian, Jack Kent Cooke.By the early 1950s, he owned 19 newspapers and was president of the Canadian Daily Newspaper Publishers Association, and then began his first foray into the British newspaper business by starting up the Canadian Weekly Review to cater to expatriate Canadians living in Britain.


Thomson’s ancestors were small tenant farmers on the estates of the Dukes of Buccleuch at Bo'ness, in the parish of Westerkirk, Dumfriesshire, Scotland.Thomson himself made the decision to move to Edinburgh where in 1952 he purchased The Scotsman newspaper.


In 1957, he launched a successful bid for the commercial television franchise for Central Scotland, named Scottish Television, which he was to describe as a "licence to print money". In 1959 he purchased the Kemsley group of newspapers, the largest in Britain, which included The Sunday Times. Over the years, he would expand his media empire to include more than 200 newspapers in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. His Thomson Organization became a multinational corporation, with interests in publishing, printing, television, and travel. In 1966, Thomson bought The Times newspaper from members of the Astor family.


In 1964 he was made Baron Thomson of Fleet.In order to receive this title, it was necessary for Thomson to acquire British citizenship, as the Canadian government had made it common practice since 1919 to disallow the conference of titular honours from the Canadian Monarch on Canadians. However, the Canadian Citizenship Act between 1947 and 1977 stated that any Canadian who became a citizen of another country through means other than marriage would cease to be a Canadian citizen. Thus, Thomson lost his Canadian citizenship in the process.


In the 1970s, Thomson joined with J. Paul Getty in a consortium that successfully explored for oil in the North Sea.


A modest man, who had little time for pretentious displays of wealth, in Britain he got by virtually unnoticed, riding the London Underground to his office each day. Nonetheless, he made his son Kenneth promise to use the hereditary title that he had received in 1964, if only in the London offices of the firm.


Thomson died in London in 1976. At the time of his death, his son Kenneth Thomson became chair of Thomson Corporation and inherited the baronial title becoming the 2nd Baron Thomson of Fleet. With the Thomson operations now principally again in Canada, the younger Thomson did not use his title in Canada though he did so in Britain, and used two sets of stationery reflecting this dichotomy. In any case, as the peerage title he had was inherited, it did not debar him from retaining his Canadian citizenship, and he never bothered to take up his right to a seat in the pre-1999 House of Lords.


Thomson died in London and a plaque was placed in the crypt of St Paul's Cathedral.

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