Marguerite, Baroness de Reuter, the last link to the 19th century founder of the Thomson Reuters news agency, has died. She was 96.
Thomson Reuters' chief executive, Tom Glocer, said in a statement that he was saddened to hear of the baroness's death. She died at a French nursing home near the border with Monaco on Sunday.
The baroness was the widow of Oliver, the fourth Baron de Reuter. His German-born grandfather Paul Julius Reuter established the news service in London in 1851. His agency grew into an international wire service with offices serving media outlets around the world.
But by 1916 the Reuter family had very little to do with the news agency, according to Michael Nelson, a former general manager of Reuters.
Nelson described the Swiss-born baroness as a "very elegant aristocrat" who divided her time between Switzerland and Monaco.
"She spent her time very much involved in charitable activities, particularly in the arts, music and painting," he said.
The baroness, however, continued to be "very proud" of her connection to the news agency, and she attended a central London church service in 2005 to mark the organization's move from its historic Fleet Street home to the Docklands, the financial district in London's East End.
Reuters merged with Thomson to form Thomson Reuters three years later.
Reuters said that her barony has become extinct because Marguerite and her husband had no children, adding that she was due to be cremated in Lausanne, Switzerland, and her ashes buried there with the remains of her husband, who died in 1968.
Nelson said a thanksgiving service in her honor would be held in Monaco later this year.
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