Jules Thorn (1899-1980) was born in Austria and emigrated to England in the early 1920s. Over the ensuing 60 years he created a substantial group of successful companies operating in the electronics sector. At its peak, Thorn Electrical Industries was one of the UK’s largest electrical businesses, employing over 100,000 people, and including such well-known names as Thorn Lighting, Ferguson Radio, Radio Rentals, DER, Tricity and Kenwood.

In collaboration with Jules Thorn’s grandchildren, Jim Lewis has written this biography of ‘a very private man’. His legacy lives on in the Jules Thorn Charitable Trust: ‘Knighted in 1964, Sir Jules was a noted philanthropist, who created his charitable trust primarily to support medical research. As a result of his endowment the Trust has been able to commit many millions of pounds to a very wide range of charitable causes’.