Gordon Brunton

Sir Gordon Charles Brunton (27 December 1921 – 30 May 2017) was a British businessman, publisher, racehorse owner and breeder.

Born in London, Brunton was educated briefly at Cranleigh School, Surrey and then at the London School of Economics where he studied under Harold Laski, John Maynard Keynes, RH Tawney, Joan Robinson and Eileen Power. It was Laski's arguments and ideas had a particular influence on Gordon Brunton's thinking.

During the onset of World War II, Brunton left university prematurely and was commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1940 and went onto serve as a Captain in the Indian Army and Royal Artillery. For much of the war, he fought in the Burma campaign before joining the British Military Government in Düsseldorf and Hamburg working on the reconstruction of local infrastructure.

After the war, Brunton worked as a door to door salesman selling classified advertising space to small businesses outside London.

He died on 30 May 2017 at the age of 95.

In 1961 Gordon Brunton had been working at Odhams when he was hired as Managing Director of Thomson Publications by Roy Thomson, 1st Baron Thomson of Fleet founder of the Thomson Newspapers & International Thomson Organisation Ltd (ITOL) Thomson Corporation now Thomson Reuters.

Brunton went onto work for the 2nd Baron, Lord Thomson of Fleet Kenneth Thomson who succeeded his late father in 1976.

Brunton served as Chief Executive of Thomson Newspapers & International Thomson Organisation Ltd (ITOL) Thomson Corporation from 1966-1984 during the Thomson period of global expansion and diversification into travel, oil, print, book, magazine, newspaper, trade and technical press and local directory publishing. By the late 1970s ITOL had become one of the largest and most influential companies in the world.

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