Roy Thompson, who built his fortune as a publican and property developer, died on Aug. 7, only eight days after his wife, Nola Thompson, had passed from Stage 4 ovarian cancer. The couple was married for 69 years, had eight children together, and donated tens of millions of dollars to charity, particularly in the Sunshine Coast region of Queensland.
“His prognosis was a broken heart,” their son Peter Thompson told Sunshine Coast News.
While no confirmed net worth figures exist for the couple, they were often described as multimillionaires who deliberately avoided a luxurious lifestyle.
“I’m 87, can’t live forever, can’t take it with you, so why shouldn’t you give it to people where you’ve made the money?” he told the Catholic Leader in 2021. “I’ve made a lot of money here and why not give it back?”
By 2018, they had donated $15 million to the University of the Sunshine Coast, including a $7 million building to house the Sunshine Coast Mind and Neuroscience—Thompson Institute, a mental health research center. Their gifts locked in scholarships and bursaries for students through 2075. The institute also houses the Nola Thompson Centre for Advanced Imaging, named for his wife.
Their generosity extended well beyond the university. In 1979, Roy launched the Sunshine Coast Rescue Helicopter Service. The couple gave $2 million toward the Wishlist Centre, affordable accommodation for patients and families across from the Sunshine Coast University Hospital. And in April 2021, they entrusted more than $5 million to the Buderim Foundation to establish the Thompson Charitable Fund. Roy Thompson was also recognized in the Order of Australia for his service to the community.
“Roy and Nola in very real, humble ways, helped to change the face of philanthropy on the Sunshine Coast,” Brendan Hogan, CEO of hospital charity Wishlist, told Sunshine Coast News.
The couple was also named Queensland Higher Education Philanthropists in 2017, but they shunned the spotlight.
“We’re not social people,” Nola told My Weekly Preview when Roy was named to a Companion of the Order of Australia in 2018. “You won’t see them swanning around the social circuit—despite their standing as two of the Sunshine Coast’s biggest philanthropists,” the outlet noted.
Living humbly and paying it forward
Roy encouraged others of means to follow suit.
“There are a lot of people that have a lot more money than they need and I think it’s up to them to start giving,” Roy told My Weekly Preview. “Let’s face it, they can’t take it with them.”
The couple lived humbly, which was a nod to Roy Thompson’s beginnings. He grew up in a single-income household with a father working in local gasworks.
“Things were not much better for the Thompsons in the 1970s, when Roy and Nola brought up their eight children on a modest builder’s wage,” said House of Representatives Member Andrew Wallace in 2018 remarks. “But in the end Australia rewards hard work, imagination and commitment.”
Roy Thompson went on to work in real estate and “had a great deal of success creating or transforming a host of Sunshine Coast landmarks,” Wallace added, including Chifley’s Hotel, which was a famous landmark and entertainment hub in the 1980s. He built the hotel in 1972 and sold it in 1978 to Stewarts Hotel Group, then bought the Mooloolaba Hotel and other Sunshine Coast developments that ultimately cemented his fortune, much of which went toward philanthropy.
Roy’s son said gratitude drove the giving.
“Ninety percent of all his donations were distributed on the Sunshine Coast,” Peter Thompson told Sunshine Coast News.
