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William Maxwell Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook, was a Canadian-British newspaper publisher and backstage politician who was an influential figure in British media and politics of the first half of the 20th century. His base of power was the largest circulation newspaper in the world, the Daily Express, which appealed to the conservative working class with intensely patriotic news and editorials. Du…
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politics · Anglo-Canadian business tycoon, politician, and writer (1879–1964) · politician · writer · historian · publisher · businessperson · newspaper proprietor · member of parliament · minister · also Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook, William Maxwell Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook, The Lord Beaverbrook, William Maxwell, 1st Baron Beaverbrook Aitken, William Maxwell Aitken, Max Aitken, Baron Beaverbrook
Born 25 May 1879 · Died 9 June 1964 · Q332454
56 published statements · 0 followers
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
“s motives was that he had told him that Germany was going to be invading the Soviet Union in the very near-future and now was the ideal time for the two”
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
“I want the empire to remain intact, but I don”
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
“... do not get caught up in quarrels over foreign boundaries that do not concern you.”
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
“Tear up the ballot paper. Throw the pieces in the waste paper basket. Turn away from Europe. Stand by the Empire and Splendid Isolation”
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
“will drag you and your children into a war”
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
Was named a National Historic Person on the advice of the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
Awarded Order of New Brunswick (2011).
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
Said the work "will remain, despite all carping, the authoritative narrative; nor does the story want in the telling thereof"
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
Mentioned alongside British Prime Ministers Churchill, Thatcher and Attlee
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
Died 1964-06-09.
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
“George Sylvester Viereck: Do you care much for money or for power?Beaverbrook: For neither in itself. I like activity, to wrestle with life and to beat it, to dare and win. I made my first million before I was thirty.Viereck: But having achieved so much, what keeps you going? Why do you spend yourself, your vitality, in politics and in business?Beaverbrook: To escape boredom.”
Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
“Evelyn Wrench: What is the biggest thing you have ever done?Beaverbrook: The destruction of the Asquith Government which was brought about by an honest intrigue. If the Asquith Government had gone on, the country would have gone down.”
Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
Favourable reviewers included Clement Attlee, Roy Jenkins, Robert Blake, Lord Longford, Sir C
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
The Daily Express was selling 4,300,000 copies per day, making it Britain's most popular newspaper
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
The Prime Minister Harold Macmillan decided to have the United Kingdom join the European Economic Community (EEC) as the European Union was then called, but he waited until July 1961 to formally make the application at l
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
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
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
Beaverbrook used the Daily Express to clamour for war against Egypt after President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalised the partly British-owned Compagnie universelle du canal maritime de Suez, an act that Beaverbrook consid
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
Became chancellor-for-life of the University of New Brunswick through an Act of the local legislature
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
Heading a Nazi collaborationist puppet government as a result of the United Kingdom entering into an armistice in 1940
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
But remained an Empire loyalist throughout his life
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
Christiansen turned down a chance to publish photographs of South Korean policemen engaged in a mass execution of suspected Communists because to do so would have "given our enemies a chance to say we are playing the Com
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
That Beaverbrook had the Daily Express take an anti-Soviet line, but even then he continued to hold out hopes that the Cold War would not be permanent and it might be possible to revive the "Big Three" alliance
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
Former Express employee and future MP Michael Foot alleged that Beaverbrook kept a blacklist of notable public figures who were to be denied any publicity in his papers because of personal disputes
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
Beaverbrook was vehemently opposed to the plans to end the Raj, with the colony of India to be granted independence and partitioned into the new nations of India and Pakistan
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
Career landmark: Lord Privy Seal (1943–1945).
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
Career landmark: Minister of Production (1942–1942).
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
“You murdered my Canadians to wreck my Second Front campaign!”
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
Career landmark: Minister of Supply (1941–1942).
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
But later in the war was appointed Lord Privy Seal
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
Career landmark: Minister of Aircraft Production (1940–1941).
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
At the invitation of Joachim von Ribbentrop, the new German ambassador to the Court of St
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
The Daily Express published an opinion piece by Lloyd George who had just returned from meeting Hitler at the Nuremberg Party Rally in which he called der Führer "the George Washington of Germany"
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
Beaverbrook campaigned against the Peace Ballot, an unofficial referendum organised in 1935 by the League of Nations Union, as the "Ballot of Blood"
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
And Politicians and the War in two volumes, the first in 1928 and the second in 1932, republished in one volume in 1960
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
Beaverbrook wrote: "In the Empire and not in Europe our future lies and the Daily Express has never failed to preach the Imperial doctrine in good or bad times
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
Beaverbrook via the Daily Express was strongly opposed to the Treaty of Locarno under which Britain "guaranteed" the current borders of France, Belgium, and Germany along with the permanent demilitarized status of the Rh
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
“In the Empire and not in Europe our future lies and the Daily Express has never failed to preach the Imperial doctrine in good or bad times. The Daily Express believes that the British Empire is the greatest instrument for good the world has ever seen”
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
In a joint deal with Lord Rothermere, Beaverbrook bought the Evening Standard
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
Beaverbrook, with Lords Rothermere, Camrose and Kemsley became one of the four so-called press barons that were the dominant figures in the inter-war press
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
Beaverbrook opposed British aid to Poland on the grounds that the Soviet-Polish war did not involve British interests
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
The circulation of the Daily Express was under 40,000 a day; by 1937, it was 2,329,000 a day, making it the most successful of all British newspapers and generating huge profits for Beaverbrook, whose wealth was already
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
Career landmark: Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (1918–1918).
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
And he was criticised by parts of the Conservative Party for financing a publication they regarded as irresponsible and often unhelpful to the party
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
The house was offered as a venue for negotiations between Bonar Law and the Prime Minister, H
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
Purchased all of the grain terminals in Alberta in the expectation that an Imperial Preference tariffs would soon be enacted as law
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
Aitken was strongly opposed to the reciprocity agreement with the United States signed by the Liberal prime minister of Canada, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, which he believed would lead to the American annexation of Canada
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
Aitken moved to Britain, and he became friends with Bonar Law, a native of New Brunswick and the only Canadian to become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
Career landmark: member of the 30th Parliament of the United Kingdom (1910–1916).
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
Aitken bought his shares in Rolls-Royce Limited, and over the next two years gradually increased his holding in the company
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
Invested in the Montreal Herald and almost acquired the Montreal Gazette
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
Also under the umbrella of his Royal Securities Company, Aitken founded the Calgary Power Company Limited, now the TransAlta Corporation, and oversaw the building of the Horseshoe Falls hydro station
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
Founded the Montreal Engineering Company
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
When Stairs launched the Royal Securities Corporation, Aitken became a minority shareholder and the firm's general manager
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
Aitken made his way to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where John F
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
Born 1879-05-25.
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
One of the ten children of William Cuthbert Aitken, a Scottish-born Presbyterian minister, and Jane (Noble), the daughter of a prosperous local farmer and storekeeper Joseph Vaughan Noble
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