Max Aitken

## Biographical information

### Marital status

Gladys Henderson Drury (1906 - 1927)Marcia Anastasia Christoforides (1963 - 1964)

### Place of death

Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

**William Maxwell "Max" Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook** PC, ONB (25 May, 1879 - 9 June, 1964), generally known as **Lord Beaverbrook**, was a Canadian-British politician and newspaper magnate who served as the 12th Prime Minister of Canada from 1943 until his resignation in 1950. An influential figure in Canadian media and politics in the 20th century, particularly among the British disapora in the country, Beaverbrook led Canada to victory in the Second Weltkrieg, and further cemented Canada as a great power. Alongside Sir John A. MacDonald and Brian Mulroney, he is considered one of the most prominent conservative figures in Canada.

A self-made man, Beaverbrook managed to become a millionaire by the age of 30. He moved from Canada to the United Kingdom, and befriended future prime minister Bonar Law. In December 1910, Beaverbrook won a seat in the House of Commons as a member of the Liberal Unionist Party. Beaverbrook was also later knighted by King George V in 1911. During the First World War he ran the Canadian Records office in London, and played a role in the removal of H. H. Asquith as prime minister in 1916. The resulting coalition government (with David Lloyd George as prime minister and Bonar Law as Chancellor of the Exchequer) rewarded Aitken with a peerage and, briefly, a Cabinet post as Minister of Information.

After the war, the now Lord Beaverbrook concentrated on his business interests. He built the *Daily Express* into the most successful mass-circulation newspaper in the world, with sales of 2.25 million copies a day across Britain. He used it to pursue personal campaigns, most notably for tariff reform and for the British Empire to become a free trade bloc. In the 1923 election, he used the *Daily Express* to associate the Labour Party with the Commune of France. The *Daily Express* did not first publish the so-called Cachin letter, a probably forged letter in which Marcel Cachin, a notable French leftist and future chairman, was alleged to order British Syndicalists to infiltrate the Labour Party and the military, which was published in the *Daily Mail* instead. However, after the Cachin letter was published, Beaverbrook had the *Daily Express* in its coverage of 1924 election associate the Labour Party with Syndicalism. This later earned him the nickname "first Baron of Fleet Street" from disgruntled members of the Labour Party.

Following the onset of the British Revolution in 1925, Beaverbrook was forced to flee the collapsing United Kingdom, and return to Canada. Attempting to build a new media empire, Beaverbrook purchased a controlling stake of the popular newspaper *The Globe and Mail*, and began using it as a mouthpiece for a proposed reconquest of Home Isles. Beaverbrook had the newspaper relentlessly criticize Liberal Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, as well as glorify the exiled British Royal Family. After being convinced to re-enter politics by fellow exile Winston Churchill, Beaverbrook won a seat in the Canadian House of Commons in his home province of New Bruinswick. Later on, Beaverbrook won the 1942 Conservative Party leadership election, and went on to defeat King in the 1943 federal election. As prime minister, Beaverbrook attended the Halifax Conference and allied his country with the German Empire and the exiled French Third Republic against the Third International. With the war resulting in a victory for Canada, Beaverbrook was elected to a second term in 1948. His second term was dedicated to helping rebuild Metropolitan France, and taking a hard line stance against the Socialist Commonwealth of America. He resigned as prime minister in 1950, and fully retired from politics.

Historians and scholars have typically ranked Beaverbrook among the upper to middle tier of Canadian prime ministers, and his contemporary approval ratings by the general public are usually high.

## Early life

Beaverbrook was born in Maple, Ontario, Canada, in 1879, the son of a Scottish-born Presbyterian minister. The following year, his family moved to Newcastle, New Brunswick, which he considered to be his home town. It was here, at the age of 13, that he published his first newspaper. Although Beaverbrook 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. Beaverbrook worked for a short time 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, Beaverbrook made his way to Halifax, Nova Scotia where John F. Stairs, part of the city's dominant business family, gave him employment, training him in the business of finance. In 1904, when Stairs opened his newly formed Royal Securities Corporation, Beaverbrook became a minority shareholder and the firm's general manager. Under the tutelage of Stairs, who would be his mentor and friend, Beaverbrook engineered a number of successful business deals and was planning to do a series of bank mergers; however, Stairs' unexpected early death in late September 1904 led to Aitken acquiring control of the company. Stairs had given the untested and untrained Beaverbrook an opportunity in business, just as Beaverbrook would later do when he hired AJ Nesbitt, a young dry goods salesman from Saint John, New Brunswick. Because Montreal, Quebec was the financial center of Canada, Beaverbrook would send Nesbitt to open the Montreal branch of Royal Securities.

On 29 January 1906, in Halifax, Beaverbrook married Gladys Henderson Drury, daughter of Major-General Charles William Drury CBE and Mary Louise Drury (nee Henderson). They had three children before her death in 1927.

## Business Career and Move to Britain

In 1910, Beaverbrook acquired many of the small regional cement plants in Eastern Canada and amalgamated them into Canada Cement. Canada was booming economically at the time and he had the monopoly on the material. There were irregularities in the stock transfer resulting from the conglomeration of the cement plants. Beaverbrook sold his shares, making a large amount of money. Beaverbrook then left for England. Some say had he stayed in Canada, he would have been charged with securities fraud. In 1912, A. J. Nesbitt left Aitken's employ to form the Nesbitt, Thomson and Co. stock brokerage. Beaverbrook appointed employee Izaak Walton Killam as the new President of Royal Securities and sold the Canadian securities company to Killam in 1919.

The year he moved to England, Beaverbrook became Liberal Unionist Member of Parliament for Ashton-under-Lyne. After the death of Charles Rolls in 1910, Aitkin bought his shares in Rolls-Royce, and over the next two years gradually increased his holding in the company. However, Claude Johnson, Rolls-Royce's Commercial Managing Director, resisted Beaverbrook's attempt to gain control of the company, and in October 1913 he sold his holding to J. B. Duke, of American Tobacco Company.

Beaverbrook began to build a London newspaper empire. He often worked closely with Andrew Bonar Law, another native of New Brunswick, who would became the only Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to be born outside the Home Isles. In 1911, he was knighted by King George V.

## First Weltkrieg

During the Great War, the Canadian government put Beaverbrook in charge of creating the Canadian War Records Office in London, and he made certain that news of Canada's contribution to the War was printed in Canadian and British newspapers. Beaverbrook 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 the Great War, during which he held the honorary rank of colonel in the Canadian Army, resulted in his 1916 book *Canada in Flanders*, a three-volume collection that chronicled the achievements of Canadian soldiers on the battlefields.

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 November 14, 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 Aitken's ally and protegé Bonar Law played a great part. He was granted a peerage in 1917 as the 1st Baron Beaverbrook, the name "Beaverbrook" being adopted from a small community near his boyhood home.

In 1918 he became the first Minister of Information. He became responsible for allied propaganda in allied and neutral countries. Lord Northcliffe became a Director of Propaganda and control propaganda in enemy countries. During his time in office Beaverbrook had a number of clashes with Foreign Secretary Balfour over the use of intelligence material. Beaverbrook felt that intelligence should become part of his department, Balfour disagreed. Eventually the intelligence committee was assigned to Beaverbrook but they then resigned en masse to be re-employed by the Foreign office. Beaverbrook also came under attack from MP's who distrusted a press baron being employed by the state. He survived but became increasingly frustrated with his limited role and influence, and in September 1918 he resigned claiming ill health. Over time, Beaverbrook 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.

## Press Baron

After the war, Beaverbrook concentrated on running the *Daily Express*. He turned the dull newspaper into a glittering and witty journal with an optimistic attitude, filled with an array of dramatic photo layouts. He hired first-rate writers such as Francis Williams and the cartoonist David Low. He embraced new technology and bought new presses to print the paper in Manchester. In 1919 the circulation of the *Daily Express* was under 40,000 a day; by 1924 it was 2,000,000 a day, making it the most successful of all British newspapers and generating huge profits for Beaverbrook whose wealth was already such that he never took a salary.

Beaverbrook, the first baron of Fleet Street, was often denounced as excessively powerful because his newspapers supposedly could make or break almost anyone. Beaverbrook enjoyed using his papers to attack his opponents and to promote his friends. From 1919 to 1922 he attacked David Lloyd George and his government on several issues. A colorful character, the American historian Randall Woods described him as "...a sharp, intense, unpredictable man. He was something of a firebrand, tending to overstatement and even irresponsibility in his editorials or public statements...Conspiracy was second nature to him...In conversation, Beaverbrook was constantly exaggerating and embellishing." Beaverbrook was considered to be likeable character full of charm and zest, but he was widely distrusted by the British elite as he was viewed as an unprincipled intriguer.

Beaverbrook, like many in the British elite, had a singificant dislike for the Labour Party and its policies. He used the *Daily Express* associate Labour with the Commune of France and the Bolsheviks, writing in a leader: "We are not fighting Mr. Ramsay MacDonald in his saner moments, but the French Communards and the shades of Monatte and Lenin." The cartoons which the *Daily Express* published tended to depict Syndicalists as alien, dirty, hairy, and unkempt thereby associating them with popular stereotypes of the poor.

## Exiled to Canada

Upon the onset of the TUC strike and the British Revolution in 1925, Beaverbrook was likely one of the most hated figures in leftist circles, due to his participation in the circulate of the fake Cachin letter. The riots in Plymouth and across the country led Beaverbrook and his wife to quickly pack up everything they owned, and make their way to the nearest port for immediate departure. Before the outbreak of violence, Beaverbrok had the Daily Express print glowing praise of Prime Minister Sir Austen Chamberlain and his National Government, and had privately hoped that Chamberlain would include him in his cabinet. This in turn made him a target of syndicalists.

Once back in Canada, Beaverbrook returned to New Bruinswick, and stayed there for the next two years. He had lost a lot of money and valuable assets in the revolution, and feared he was nearing bankruptcy. After two years in somewhat quiet solitude, Beaverbrook began making moves in the Canadian media world. In 1927, Beaverbrook managed to purchase a controlling stake of the popular Canadian newspaper *The Globe and Mail*, transforming it into an explicitly pro-conservative, pro-monarchist and anti-syndicalist paper. He fully supported the "Reclaim the Birthright" movement, which advocated for rearmament under which the Royal Navy as well as the Canadian Army and Royal Canadian Air force were built up considerably and used to conquer the Union of Britain. The Globe and Mail also became a player in the media war between Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King and exiled King George V, taking the side of the royal family and denouncing Mackenzie King's government as defeatist. Beaverbrook's paper supported Conservative Party Leader R.B. Bennett in the 1930 Canadian federal election, which saw Bennett winning a conservative majority in the House of Commons.

## Re-entry into Politics and Conservative Party Leader

Beaverbrook had been reluctant to take part in politics following the British Revolution. He had declined the offer from George V to be appointed to the Senate of Canada like many prominent British exiles had been, preferring instead to work in the private sector. Beaverbrook was well liked in the Canadian Conservative Party, however he felt as though his political career was over. It wasn't until 1939, when Beaverbrook was convinced by longtime friend and novelist Winston Churchill to begin taking part in Canadian parliament.

In 1940, Beaverbrook used his newspapers to announce his intention to run for a seat in the House of Commons for the Northumberland riding in New Bruinswick. Many in Canada were somehwat perplexed at the idea of a British lord running for a seat in the lower house of parliament, but Beaverbrook made sure to assure his readers that their was nothing illegal about what he was doing. Beaverbrook ended up winning the riding, and taking his seat in the House of Commons as a Conservative MP. The Conseravtive Party lost badly to Mackenzie King's Liberals in 1940, with Conservative Leader Robert Manion losing his seat in parliament. Richard Hanson was made interim leader, and served until 1941, being replaced by former Prime Minister and Senator Arthur Meighen. Upon his entry to the house, many conservative MPs began looking to him for guidance, due to his age, wealth, and previous political experience, but also due to the fact that Meighen could not take part in the affairs of the House of Commons, due to him lacking a seat.

In September 1942, Meighen called for a national party convention to broaden out the party's appeal and reportedly approached populist John Bracken, the longtime Liberal-Progressive Premier of Manitoba to seek the party's leadership. On the first day of the convention, Meighen confirmed in his keynote address that he would not be a candidate for the party's leadership. Meighen did not trust Beaverbrook, and intended to due everything possible to prevent him from becoming leader. In the end, Beaverbrook fell only marginally short of winning outright on the first ballot, with Bracken a distant second, and the other three candidates earning largely insignificant numbers of votes. Beaverbrook was made leader of the Conservative Party in 1942.

## Leader of the Opposition

As Leader of the Official Opposition, Beaverbrook would continue to support Prime Minister Mackenzie King's National Government, and work closely with the Liberals during the Second American Civil War. Beaverbrook was one of the most boisterous anti-syndicalist voices in the commons, and called for further conscription in Quebec to prevent a syndicalist takeover. Additionally, Beaverbrook also advocated for Canada to intervene in the Second Weltkrieg, and ally itself with Germany. This greatly put him at odds with Mackenzie King, who at this time had become the leading voice for Canadian non-interventionism when it came to Europe.

Following the end of the Second American Civil War with the signing of the Rocky Mountain Armistice, Beaverbrook and the Conservatives broke away from King's National Government, and launched a no confidence motion against the Liberal prime minister. The vote failed, but it was enough to pressure King to petition King Edward VIII to call for a snap election in May 1943. Newspapers owned by Beaverbrook began printing sensational headlines, demanding that King immediately resign as prime minister.

Beaverbrook proved to be a dynamic campaigner in the provinces. He speeches advocating for the total banishment of syndicalism and socialism from North America and Europe seemed to electrify people who had been beat down by six years of war. In contrast, King seemed cold and awkward, and his critcisms of Beaverbrook failed to garner the praise he was hoping for. In the general election, Beaverbrook's Conservatives won an outright majority. The party made electoral inroads in every province except Quebec.

## Prime Minister of Canada

One week into his first term, Beaverbrook's government issued a declaration of war against the Commune of France and the Union of Britain, and began diplomatically courting Germany. Military conscription, which was briefly retired following the end of the Second American Civil War, was brought back, although Quebec was again exempted from such conscription. In late 1943, Beaverbrook folded the last remaining elements of the Royal Air Force into the Royal Canadian Air Force. Anti-syndicalist and anti-French propaganda films were created in mass for the general public, a move which alienated many voters in Quebec. Also in late 1943, Beaverbrook agreeded to meet with the leaders of Germany, Portugal, and the exiled French Third Republic, in what would become the Halifax Conference. After the conference, Canada officially became allies with the German Empire, and began shipping Canadian troops to Europe. Beaverbrook's government had also attempted to form an alliance with the neutral Irish Republic, in hopes of using it as a staging ground for an invasion of the British Home Isles. This proposal was rebuffed by the Irish government.

Beaverbrook was key to the planning of Operation Liberté Bleue, and helped coordinate a cooperative landing in Southern France with the Imperial German Navy and the Marine Nationale. The Royal Navy and Canadian Army proved indispensable in creating a beach head in Metropolitan France.

Beaverbrook could not ignore the need for post-war reforms covering a broad sweep of areas such as agriculture, education, employment, health, housing and welfare. However, he was not really interested because he was focused on winning the war and saw reform in terms of tidying up afterwards. When it came to publicly discussing these issues, Beaverbrook was noticeably disinterested. One Canadian journalist remarked that Beaverbrook came across as a "a worn and petulant old man".

With the collapse of the Commune of France in 1946, the Reichspakt and its allies had won the war, and the Conservative Party reaped all the praise for this. In the 1948 election, the Conservative Party was once again elected to a massive majority in the House of Commons, keeping the Liberals out. In the period after the Second Weltkrieg, Beaverbrook's government helped fund the rebuilding of Metropolitan France.

## Resignation and Death

In late February 1950, Beaverbrook announced his intention to resign from his office, citing his old age. He would officially leave office on March 4, 1950. His protégé, John Diefenbaker, succeeded him as Leader of the Conservative Party.

Beaverbrook continued to live lavishly in retirement. British historian Neal Ascherson noted: "His life became a progress like a medieval king’s, cruising on Atlantic liners and luxurious yachts with a great retinue of servants, cronies, henchmen, useful politicians and pretty women. But the Beaver did not forget old comrades. The ageing Winston Churchill was free to stay and paint in the sun at his beautiful home whenever he pleased, and their friendship grew closer until Beaverbrook’s death in 1964. He used his money and connections quietly to rescue many other lesser figures in trouble. A.J.P. Taylor justly called him ‘a foul-weather friend".

In 1953 he became chancellor-for-life of the University of New Brunswick through an Act of the local legislature. He became the university's greatest benefactor, fulfilling the same role for the city of Fredericton and the province as a whole. He would provide additional buildings for the university, scholarship funds, the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, the Beaverbrook Skating Rink, the Lord Beaverbrook Hotel, with profits donated to charity, the Playhouse, Louise Manny's early folklore work, and numerous other projects.

Lord Beaverbrook died in Leatherhead in 1964, aged 85. He had recently attended a birthday banquet organised by fellow Canadian press baron, Lord Thomson of Fleet, where he was determined to be seen on his usual good form, despite suffering from cancer.

## Legacy

Beaverbrook is often regarded as one of the greatest prime ministers in Canadian history. Historians generally agree that he is second only to Sir John A. MacDonald in terms of his influence on Canadian conservatism. His tenure led to the overwhelming prominence of red toryism in the Conservative Party. Red toryism would be the dominant party ideology for several decades in Canada. Beaverbrook and his wife Lady Beaverbrook left a considerable legacy to both New Brunswick and the defunct United Kingdom. In 2014, he was named a National Historic Person on the advice of the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada.

The Beaverbrook Chair in Ethics, Media and Communications at McGill University is named in his honor. Additionally, a statue to him now stands in Fredericton, New Bruinswick.