Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook

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William Maxwell "Max" Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook, PC (May 25, 1879 – June 9, 1964) was a Canadian – British business tycoon and politician.

1 Early career in Canada
2 To England
3 First baron of Fleet Street
4 World War II
5 The benefactor
6 Legacy
7 Succession
8 Bibliography
9 External links

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Early career in Canada

He was born in Maple, Ontario, Canada and at an early age his family moved to Newcastle, New Brunswick, the place he would always call home and where, at the age of 13, he published his first newspaper. Although he wrote the entrance examinations for Dalhousie University and registered at the Saint John Law School, he did not attend either institution. His only formal higher education came when he briefly attended the University of New Brunswick. Aitken worked briefly as an office boy in the law office of Richard Bedford Bennett, in the Town of Chatham, New Brunswick. Bennett later became Prime Minister of Canada and a business associate.

As a young man, he made his way to Halifax, Nova Scotia where John F Stairs, part of the city's dominant business family, employed him at his newly formed Royal Securities Corporation. Under the tutelage of Stairs, who would be his mentor and lifelong friend, Aitken engineered a number of large business deals and mega-mergers. On January 29, 1906 in Halifax, he married Gladys Henderson Drury, daughter of Major General Charles Drury. They had three children before her untimely passing in 1927.

Children with Gladys Henderson Drury:

Janet Gladys Aitken (1908-1988)
John William Maxwell Aitken (1910-1985)
Peter Rudyard Aitken (1912-1947)

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To England

Soon, Aitken moved to England, where he bought and later sold control of the Rolls-Royce automobile company and began to build a London newspaper empire. He often worked closely with Andrew Bonar Law, another native of New Brunswick, who became the only Canadian to be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. In 1911, he was knighted by King George V. During World War I, the Canadian government put him in charge of creating the Canadian War Records Office in London and Aitken then made certain that news of Canada's contribution to the War was printed in Canadian and British newspapers. Aitken also established the Canadian War Memorials Fund that evolved into a collection of war art by the premier artists and sculptors in Britain and Canada. His visits to the Western Front during World War I resulted in his 1916 book Canada in Flanders, a three-volume collection that chronicled the achievements of Canadian soldiers on the battlefields. After the War, he wrote several books including Politicians and the Press in 1925 and Politicians and the War in 1928.

Adding to his chain of newspapers, which included the London Evening Standard he bought a controlling interest in the failing Daily Express from Lawson Johnson on 14 November, 1916 for £17,500; he had been lending money to the paper and its proprietors since January 1911. He always obscured this transaction because it was at the same time as the Parliamentary crisis which replaced Asquith with Lloyd George, in which Beaverbrook's ally and protegé Bonar Law played a great part; A. J. P. Taylor, Beaverbrook's friend and biographer, assures us that this was a mere coincidence, brought on by Johnson's eagerness to be quit of the paper.

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First baron of Fleet Street

Over time, he turned the dull newspaper into a glittering and witty journal, filled with an array of dramatic photo layouts and in 1918, he founded the Sunday Express. By 1934, daily circulation reached 1,708,000, generating huge profits for Aitken whose wealth was already such that he never took a salary. Following World War II, the Daily Express became the largest selling newspaper in the world, by far, with a circulation of 3,706,000. He would become known by some historians as the first baron of "Fleet Street" and as one of the most powerful men in Britain whose newspapers could make or break almost anyone. In the 1930s, while personally attempting to dissuade King Edward VIII from continuing his potentially ruinous affair with American divorcee, Wallis Simpson, Lord Beaverbrook's newspapers published every tidbit of the affair, especially the heir apparent's cosiness with Adolf Hitler.

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World War II

During World War II, he joined the British cabinet as minister of information and in 1940, Winston Churchill, the new British Prime Minister, would appoint him as Minister of Aircraft Production and later Minister of Supply. Under Aitken, fighter and bomber production increased so much so that Churchill declared: "His personal force and genius made this Aitken's finest hour".

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The benefactor

After the war, Lord Beaverbrook served as chancellor of the University of New Brunswick and became the university's, the city of Fredericton's and the Province's greatest benefactor. He would provide additions to the University, scholarship funds, the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, the Beaverbrook Skating Rink, the Lord Beaverbrook Hotel (profits donated to charity), The Playhouse, and numerous other projects.

In 1957, a bronze statue of Lord Beaverbrook was erected at the centre of Officers' Square in Fredericton, New Brunswick, paid for by money raised by children throughout the province. A bust of him by Oscar Nemon stands in the park in the town square of Newcastle, New Brunswick not far from where he sold newspapers as a young boy. His ashes are in a plinth of the bust.

Beaverbrook was both admired and despised in England, sometimes at the same time: in his 1956 autobiography, David Low quotes H.G. Wells as saying of Beaverbrook: "If ever Max ever gets to Heaven, he won't last long. He will be chucked out for trying to pull off a merger between Heaven and Hell after having secured a controlling interest in key subsidiary companies in both places, of course."

In England he lived at Cherkley Court, near Leatherhead, Surrey. Beaverbrook remained a widower for many years until 1963 when he married Marcia Anastasia Christoforides (1910-1994), the widow of his friend Sir James Dunn. Lord Beaverbrook died in Surrey in 1964. The Beaverbrook Foundation continues his philanthropic interests.

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Legacy

Lord Beaverbrook and his wife Lady Beaverbrook have left a considerable legacy to his adopted province of New Brunswick and the United Kingdom, among others. His legacy includes the following buildings:

Image:Beaverbrook 1st Statue.gif

University of New Brunswick
- Aitken House
- Aitken University Centre
- Lady Beaverbrook Gymnasium
- Lady Beaverbrook Residence
- Beaverbrook House (UNBSJ E-Commerce Centre)

City of Fredericton, New Brunswick
- Lady Beaverbrook Arena (formerly operated by UNB)
- The Beaverbrook Art Gallery, including world-renowned art collection (N.B.'s provincial gallery)
- The Fredericton Playhouse]
- Lord Beaverbrook Hotel