Obituary: Thomas Ingham

He joined the company in the early 1970s, along with Dennis Moore, Mike Gharibian and a few others, at the start of a new period in Reuters. 

“Until he joined, only the 4th floor workshop at 85 Fleet Street ran a 24/7 operation. The shifts were expanded and three new groups were formed – Editorial, Communications and Retrievals. Each group was made up of Peripheral Technicians, Computer Technicians and Engineers. Tom was, as to be expected, one of the elite in the new Retrievals group, looking after the Quotes and Monitor systems. Tom was one of the shift leaders at nights and weekends and spent much of the day shifts teaching and helping the up-and-coming young techies, such as me, Bert Plummer, Peter Blake, et al in the new ways of the world. Tom was not the only helpful one, all the new guys were really supportive in our new roles and we have much to thank them for.”

Towards the end of the 1970s, the company began to expand exponentially and two new groups were formed, Communications Systems Group and Retrieval Systems Group, the latter under Phil Arnett and Dredge Liversedge. “Both Tom and I joined RSG, and that began a whole new chapter in both our lives,” Bliss said. “Tom was with Phil running major systems upgrades and projects, I was with Dredge on country expansion projects. The first overseas trip I did was with Tom, to visit the Paris Bourse and the Reuters Data Centre. At the end of the first, gruelling day, Tom suggested we find somewhere to eat. Great, I thought, a nice meal in a swanky Parisienne restaurant, just the ticket after a hard day of fact-finding. We ended up in the latest craze to hit Paris – a McDonalds! I haven’t been to one since.”

RSG and CSG eventually outgrew their usefulness and were disbanded in 1981.

Ingham was a first class engineer and soon after joinging from ICL became a specialist on the Second Generation Slave, which was then Reuters’ new cutting edge quotes system, Ken Pratt recalls. At this time Reuters was also introducing the Reuter Monitor and new communications systems. “It was soon realised by Patrick Mannix that there was a need for a small team of specialist engineers to provide worldwide support for these systems and the operations engineering group was formed. Later I took over this group and it became clear that the members of the group were losing their expertise by not being involved in the systems on a day to day basis. Patrick decided that it would be better to pay the best engineers a retainer to keep up to date on their systems worldwide and to give a commitment to provide support for any data centre within 24 hours. Tom was the obvious choice to support the SGS and was very well respected for his expertise. The group became known as the sandbaggers after a popular TV show of the time.

“In true Reuters tradition Tom was totally dependable, great fun socially and very proud to have been part of those pioneering days.”

Ingham took over the RA technical liaison role from Doug Bliss in 1985. “Together with Steve Somerville on the management side, Tom became the rock in London on whom we all depended,” said Phil Arnett, former director of product quality. “The Reuters Asia area at the time included the Middle East and the less sophisticated South East Asia markets. The needs were complex and the countries demanding. I cannot remember Tom failing to sort out a problem be it sourcing parts or providing information for generally obstructive PTTs. For the last two years of his career he was mainly based in Hong Kong continuing to provide the support for which we had all been so grateful.”

"Tom worked with me in Peter Job's 'Asian Embassy' in London,” Stephen Somerville said. “An engaging character with a huge network of contacts, he was invaluable as chief fixer at Head Office for all Reuters Asia's technical innovations. He turned the job into an art form."

After his passing on 27 May, Ingham's body was taken to the Sri Phan Temple in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand, where he lay adorned with flowers and two large pictures of him in golfing clothing and sunglasses. A Buddhist ceremony was held and after cremation his wife Ann scattered his ashes on the River Ping, which flows through Chiang Mai.

Colleagues of Tom Ingham are to meet at The Old Bell, Fleet Street from 4:30 pm on Thursday 24 June to remember him. ■