Background
Born William Maxwell Aitken on 25 May 1979 in Maple, Ontario, he was the son of a Presbyterian minister who emigrated from England. “Max” was reared in genteel poverty, his happy boyhood spent in Newcastle, New Brunswick.
politician writer newspaper proprietor
Born William Maxwell Aitken on 25 May 1979 in Maple, Ontario, he was the son of a Presbyterian minister who emigrated from England. “Max” was reared in genteel poverty, his happy boyhood spent in Newcastle, New Brunswick.
At the age of 16 he failed the college entrance examination and left home to make his fortune. He did this by working up through ever-more-profitable positions to hold a seat on the Montreal stock exchange and establish the Canada Cement Company. Beaverbrook’s genius was in attracting backers and negotiating business combinations and alliances. In 1910 he sold out for a reputed $5 million and sought greener pastures in England.
Through a number of mergers in banking, cement, and steel Max Aitken became sufficiently wealthy in 1910 to retire from business and to leave Montreal for London, England. For a time he served as private secretary to Canadian - born Andrew Bonar Law, and from 1910 to 1916 he represented Ashton - under - Lyne in the House of Commons.
With the outbreak of war in Europe, Sir William Aitken (he had been knighted in 1911) joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force in France as an eyewitness reporter. In May 1915 he was appointed Canadian record officer and in January 1916 he created the Canadian Records Office; his biographer, A.J.P. Taylor, notes that "he became an assiduous squirrel in pursuit of contemporary records."
In 1916 the Canadian government officially appointed Aitken its representative at the western front; he was created a baronet the same year. In 1917 he was appointed officer in charge of the Canadian War Records and raised to the peerage at the urging of Prime Minister David Lloyd George as Baron Beaverbrook, of New Brunswick and Cherkley, Surrey. In fact, Beaverbrook behind the scenes greatly facilitated many of Lloyd George's personnel changes during the latter part of the war.
On February 10, 1918, the prime minister appointed Lord Beaverbrook minister of information. Beaverbrook rather romantically viewed propaganda ("information" was still preferred as a gentler term) as "the popular arm of diplomacy." He took up the task with gusto. War artists were commissioned and their products displayed throughout the nation, as were the new war photographs, much of which material is now in the Imperial War Museum. A film section within the Ministry of Information turned out the first war films for viewing in the United Kingdom. Beaverbrook greatly facilitated the work of foreign press representatives and entertained them lavishly; overseas press bureaus were established under his guidance.
He resigned his post on October 21, 1918, after numerous rows with the Foreign Office which, he felt, was curtailing his freedom of action too severely. Taylor concludes that Beaver - brook's stint as minister of information is important primarily as his apprenticeship for later assignments.
After the war, Beaverbrook turned to Fleet Street and acquired as part of the Beaverbrook Newspapers the Daily Express, Sunday Express, Scottish Daily Express, Scottish Sunday Express, and other papers. He was an avowed imperialist who continued to refer to the Commonwealth as the Empire. In 1918 he vowed that he would never enter politics again, except in time of war.
Winston S. Churchill called upon Beaverbrook in 1940 - 1941 as his minister of aircraft production; in 1941 the Canadian became minister of state, in 1941 - 1942 minister of supply, and from September 1943 to July 1945 lord privy seal. From 1947 until 1953 he served as chancellor of the University of New Brunswick. Lord Beaverbrook died at Cherkley on June 9,1964.
Max Aitken was an avowed imperialist who continued to refer to the Commonwealth as the Empire.
En route he married the beautiful 19-year-old Gladys Henderson in 1906.