Thomas Bleakley McDowell

Major Thomas Bleakley McDowell often called T.B McDowell, or simply "the Major", (18 May 1923 – 9 September 2009) was a British Army officer and subsequently chief executive of The Irish Times for nearly 40 years.

Born in Belfast in 1923, the only child of a Protestant and unionist couple, McDowell finished school at the Royal Belfast Academic Institution in 1941 as the second World War was under way. He was dissuaded from enlisting immediately in the British army by his parents: his father, also Thomas, had been gassed in the first World War and suffered serious lung problems which led to his early death in 1944. The young Tom went instead to Queen's University in Belfast to study commerce but, a year later and still uncertain about his long-term plans, he joined the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, being commissioned in 1943. He went on to join the Royal Ulster Rifles.

A knee injury during a night training exercise in Omagh made him ineligible for active military service and he became a weapons instructor. The accident also led to him meeting his future wife, Margaret Telfer, the physiotherapist who treated him in hospital in Bangor, Co Down.

He rose to the rank of major and was part of the Allied forces in occupied Austria following the end of the war, taking part in joint patrols in Vienna with Russian, American and French officers. In the post-war period, he was given two years to finish his college course and spent a summer studying law with a tutor before passing the English bar and returning to the British army.

After a further military posting to Edinburgh, his legal qualification brought him to the army legal service in the War Office in London. With little prospect of further promotion and every chance of being posted abroad without his young family, he decided to leave the army. He was offered a job as legal adviser in London to James North Ltd, a company which made protective clothing; with no experience of industry, he asked to be given a managerial role at first.

The company suggested a managing position in its operations in Dublin. He slotted easily into the city's old business establishment, joining the Kildare Street club, becoming a director of Pim's department store, and setting his career firmly on a commercial rather than a legal path.

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