Goldsmith, Sir James (1933-1997), a British-French businessman and political party leader, was one of the wealthiest people in the United Kingdom.
Goldsmith spent his early childhood living in several European capital cities. Following the outbreak of World War II (1939-1945), he escaped from France with his family and lived out the rest of the war in the Bahamas. Starting in 1955, he built up a pharmaceuticals business in France. He then founded Cavenham Foods, an international food manufacturing and processing company. Goldsmith also bought control of other industrial, commercial, and financial companies.
In 1977, Goldsmith went into publishing by buying the French news magazine L’Expresse. In 1979, he launched a magazine called Now! in the United Kingdom, but it ran for only two years. Between 1982 and 1985, he built up a holding in paper and forest-product companies, and in 1986 he gained control of France’s second largest publisher, Presse de la Cite.
In politics, Goldsmith was a committed conservative. He opposed the establishment of closer links between the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1994, he won election to the European Parliament. He formed and financed a new political party in the United Kingdom, the Referendum Party, to campaign for a public referendum (direct vote) on monetary union and other aspects of closer European unity. In the United Kingdom’s general election of May 1997, however, the Referendum Party attracted little voter support.
James Michael Goldsmith was born in Paris on Feb. 26, 1933. He was knighted in 1976. He died on July 18, 1997. He was the younger brother of Edward Goldsmith, an author and environmentalist (see Goldsmith, Edward ).
