He is the son of James Fredrick Gosnell, known as "Fred", who was the mayor of London, Ontario, Canada briefly in 1972.
[2] His father, James Fredrick Gosnell was a former London police officer, alderman, and mayor and served in India and Burma with the Royal Canadian Air Force, during the Second World War.
[2] James Fredrick Gosnell then jumped to the Board of Control in a "secret" ballot amongst council members, then ran as mayor in 1971.
"I suppose you can say our pop had a lot to do with shaping that, At a very early age he had taste buds for history and politics.
He reflected in 1985 that he "hated running, and preferred game situations...when I played football the only time I ran was when a 300 pound lineman was tracking me down.
"[4] Upon graduation from Laurier, Tom and Bill Gosnell played with Senior ORFU London Lords as two of the team's youngest players.
"When Tom was with the Brantford Bisons (Ontario Junior Football Conference), the Hamilton Tiger-Cats asked three or 4 of them to camp."
buttons and the night before the election with Gleeson still favoured, hundreds of green lawn signs sprung up in clusters on every major street corner in London.
[3] During his university years when he let his hair grow long and wore peace patches on the pockets of his blue jeans, the father and son did not get along famously.
In his university years Gosnell challenged authority, turning $2 parking tickets into 14-dollar summonses until one day the police arrived at his father's home on Wharncliffe Road South when Fred pulled Tom out of bed by the ankles one morning to find out why the police were at the door.
[3] The Hamilton Tiger-Cats coach Tom Mooney also had learned what it was like to be on the receiving end of Gosnell's temper.
Gosnell said "I realized at the time that I probably didn't have the ability to go on as a pro ball player, so it was a lot easier to do it."
We obviously want major developers to do things downtown but we're not in a situation of a Brantford or a Chatham, where our economies are falling apart.