Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
Ashton under Lyne | |
---|---|
In office 3 December 1910 – 23 December 1916 | |
Preceded by | Alfred Scott |
Succeeded by | Albert Stanley |
Personal details | |
Born | William Maxwell Aitken 25 May 1879 Maple, Ontario, Canada |
Died | 9 June 1964 Leatherhead, Surrey, England | (aged 85)
Political party | |
Spouses | |
Children |
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Residence(s) | Cherkley Court, Leatherhead, Surrey, England |
Occupation | Legislator, author, entrepreneur |
William Maxwell Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
The young Max Aitken had a gift for making money and was a millionaire by the age of 30. His business ambitions quickly exceeded opportunities in Canada and he moved to Britain. There he befriended
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
Beaverbrook spent his later life running his newspapers, which by then included the Evening Standard and the Sunday Express.[3] He served as Chancellor of the University of New Brunswick and developed a reputation as a historian with his books on political and military history.[4]
Early life
Aitken was born in
Aitken took the entrance examinations for
Early business career
In 1900, Aitken made his way to
Stairs' unexpected early death in September 1904 led to Aitken acquiring control of the company and moving to
In 1910–1911 Aitken acquired a number of small regional cement plants in Canada, including Sir
Aitken had made his first visit to Britain in September 1908, and when he returned there in the spring of 1910, in an attempt to raise money to form a steel company, he decided to make the move permanent,]
Move to Britain
In 1910, 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. The two men had a lot in common: they were both sons of the manse from Scottish-Canadian families and both were successful businessmen. Aitken persuaded Bonar Law to support him in standing for the Unionist Party in the December 1910 general election at Ashton-under-Lyne. Aitken was an excellent organiser and, with plenty of money for publicity, he won the seat by 196 votes.[6][13] Aitken's "bumptious" election campaign brought him some notoriety.[14]
Aitken rarely spoke in the House of Commons, but he did promise substantial financial support to the Unionist Party, and in 1911 he was knighted by
In 1911, Aitken was strongly opposed to the reciprocity agreement with the United States signed by the Liberal prime minister of Canada, Sir Wilfried Laurier, which he believed would lead to the American annexation of Canada.[15] As such, Aitken temporarily returned to Canada to vigorously campaign for the Conservatives led by Sir Robert Borden. Aitken had his friend Rudyard Kipling intervene in the election on the behalf of the Conservatives.[15] At the time the line between British and English-Canadian national identities was more blurred than today, and Aitken did not regard Kipling as a "foreign" figure. On 7 September 1911, the Montreal Daily Star (the most widely read newspaper in Canada at the time) published a front-page appeal to all Canadians by Kipling where he wrote: "It is her own soul that Canada risks today. Once that soul is pawned for any consideration, Canada must inevitably conform to the commercial, legal, financial, social and ethical standards which will be imposed on her by the sheer admitted weight of the United States."[15] Kipling's article attracted much attention in Canada and was reprinted in every English-language Canadian newspaper over the following week, where it was credited with helping the Conservatives win the election.[15]
Aitken bought
Empire Fiscal Union was, in fact, my only reason for entering politics in Britain and for continuing to take an interest in public life. My devotion to Bonar Law, my belief in his Leadership, my faith in his ability to give to the Empire some day, perhaps some day soon, the Union I so ardently desired, had kept me in close and intimate touch with him and his political problems.[16]
Aitken continued to grow his business interests while in Parliament, and also began to build a British newspaper empire. After the death of Charles Rolls in 1910, Aitken bought his shares in Rolls-Royce Limited, and over the next two years gradually increased his holding in the company. However, Claude Johnson, Rolls-Royce's Commercial managing director, resisted his attempt to gain control of the company, and in October 1913 Aitken sold his holding to James Buchanan Duke of the American Tobacco Company.[17] In January 1911 Aitken secretly invested £25,000 in the failing Daily Express. An attempt to buy the Evening Standard failed, but he did gain control of another London evening paper, The Globe. In November 1916 a share deal worth £17,500, with Lawson Johnson, landed Aitken a controlling interest in the Daily Express, but again he kept the deal secret.[6]
First World War
Due to the outbreak of the
Aitken became increasingly hostile towards the British Prime Minister,
Aitken was happy to play a small part, which he greatly exaggerated, as a go-between when Asquith was forced from office and replaced by
Beaverbrook's controlling stake in the Daily Express became public knowledge later in 1917, and he was criticised by parts of the Conservative Party for financing a publication they regarded as irresponsible and often unhelpful to the party.[6]
On February 10, 1918, Beaverbrook became the first minister in the newly formed
A. J. P. Taylor later wrote that Beaverbrook was a pathbreaker who "invented all the methods of publicity" used by Britain to promote the war, including the nation's first war artists, the first war photographers, and the first makers of war films. He was especially effective in promoting the sales of war bonds to the general public. Nevertheless, he was widely disliked and distrusted by the political elite, who were suspicious of all they sneeringly called "press lords".[23]
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
After the death of Lord Northcliffe in 1922, 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. By 1937 the four owned nearly one in every two national and local daily papers sold in Britain, as well as one in every three Sunday papers that were sold. The combined circulation of all their newspapers amounted to over thirteen million.[24]
Beaverbrook purchased
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."[26] 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.[26] A flamboyant, charismatic man full of dynamism and exuberance who stood out on the account of his Canadian Maritime accent, Beaverbrook was the subject of much fascination by the public.[27] He was disliked by his employees as a demanding boss who had telephones installed in every room of his house so that he could always call his newspapers editors to give his orders about what story was interesting him at the moment without having to wait.[27] Beaverbrook's much vaunted principle of "independence" under which he felt free to attack his allies via his newspapers made him few friends.[26]
Though a Conservative, Beaverbrook was opposed to British intervention in the Russian civil war and used his newspapers to argue that the question of who ruled Russia was no business of Britain's.[28] Beaverbrook had one of his periodic falling outs with Churchill at the time, and saw attacking intervention in the Russian civil war, which Churchill had strongly promoted, as a way of lashing out.[28] For example, on 6 September 1919, Beaverbrook ran on the front page of The Daily Express a banner headline, "ARCHANGEL SCANDAL EXPOSED: FAMOUS VC APPEALS TO THE NATION" above an article attacking the intervention as pointless and singled Churchill as the author of an expedition that had gone horribly wrong.[28] The subtitle of the article was "DUPLICITY OF CHRUCHILL'S POLICY TOWARDS RUSSIA-THE PUBLIC HUMBUGGED".[29] A linked article claimed that the British force in Arkhangelsk were poised to go deep into Russia with the aim of overthrowing the Bolshevik regime and Churchill had lied to the British people about the purpose of the expedition.[30] In 1920, Beaverbrook opposed to British aid to Poland under the grounds that the Soviet-Polish war did not involve British interests.[31]
Beaverbrook began supporting independent Conservative candidates and campaigned for fifteen years to remove Stanley Baldwin from the leadership of the Conservative Party. In the 1924 election, he used the Daily Express to associate the Labour Party with the Soviet Union, writing in a leader: "We are not fighting Mr. Ramsay MacDonald in his saner moments, but the Russian Bolshevists and the shade of Lenin." [32] The Daily Express did not first publish the so-called Zinoviev letter, a probably forged letter in which Grigory Zinoviev, the chief of the Comintern, was alleged to order British Communists to infiltrate the Labour Party and the military, which was published in the Daily Mail instead.[33] However, after the Zinoviev letter was published, Beaverbrook had the Daily Express in its coverage of 1924 election associate the Labour Party with Communism.[32] The cartoons which the Daily Express published tended to depict Communists as alien, dirty, hairy, and unkempt, thereby associating them with popular stereotypes of the poor.[34]
In foreign policy, Beaverbrook promoted a policy known as "
Reflecting his origins, Beaverbrook always thought in terms of the British empire rather than of Britain, and he had an essentially Commonwealth perspective as he argued that
Beaverbrook had long resented Baldwin's leadership of the Conservative Party and the loss of his influence that had followed the resignation of Bonar Law in 1923.[43] Beaverbrook had privately "rejoiced" when the Conservatives lost the 1929 election, seeing Labour's victory as a chance to impose his views on the Conservative party, especially with regard to the Empire Free Trade zone.[43] Through there was much discontent within the Conservative ranks over Baldwin's leadership, Beaverbrook was regarded as an "untouchable" by the Conservative elite.[43] In July 1929, Beaverbrook launched the Empire Crusade movement to campaign for the "Empire Free Trade zone", which attracted support from various Tory backbencher MPs, peers and local riding associations.[43]
He very shrewdly sold the majority of his share holdings before the
On 17 March 1931, during the St George's Westminster by-election, Stanley Baldwin described the media barons who owned British newspapers as having "Power without responsibility – the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages."[12][page needed]
"Empire Isolationism" and appeasement
In March 1933, he visited Germany where he wrote that it was his impression that "the stories of Jewish persecution are exaggerated".[35] His most enduring impressions of his German trip was he felt that SA could not march properly, and he seemed to regard the Nazis as something of a joke who were not capable of achieving much of anything.[35] Beaverbrook frequently changed his views about Adolf Hitler, which caused the obituary writers that worked for him much anguish as they were forced to change their drafts of a Hitler obituary from positive to negative to positive again.[46] After the Night of the Long Knives, Beaverbrook "turned solidly, fanatically anti-Hitler" as he compared Hitler to Al Capone and the Nazis to gangsters.[46] Beaverbrook was to change his opinions about Hitler a number of times afterward.[46]
In a guest opinion column published in April 1935 in the Hearst newspapers, Beaverbrook set out to explain "the section of opinion to which I belong - the Isolationists".[47] Beaverbrook advocated that: "Britain should make no alliances except with the United States, that we should incur no obligations, no responsibilities, no liabilities outside of the Empire except in relation to the Anglo-Saxon race".[47] He supported the "limited liability" rearmament under which the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy were built up at the expense of the British Army as the rearmament program in best accord with his own foreign policy ideas.[48] In 1935, Beaverbrook campaigned against the Peace Ballot, an unofficial referendum organised in 1935 by the League of Nations Union, as the "Ballot of Blood".[49] He was concerned that if Britain should be obliged to enforce the collective security policies of the League of Nations against aggression, it could involve Britain in wars where no British interests were at stake.[49] In a leader in the Daily Express, he wrote the collective security policy of the League "will drag you and your children into a war" caused by "the ambitious and unscrupulous powers" that were the other members of the League (Beaverbrook failed to mention that to activate collective security required the approval of the League Council, of which Britain was a veto-holding member).[50] Beaverbrook stated that his readers should not take part in the Peace Ballot and wrote: "Tear up the ballot paper. Throw the pieces in the waste paper basket. Turn away from Europe. Stand by the Empire and Splendid Isolation".[50]
During the crisis caused by the Italian aggression against Ethiopia, Beaverbrook was opposed to the policy of imposing sanctions on Italy under the banner of the League of Nations as he argued that the Italo-Ethiopian war did not concern Britain.[51] In a leader, he warned that the sanctions on Italy might cause a "world race war" as he stated that Ethiopia was not worth fighting for as it was an African nation.[51] Likewise, when Germany remilitarized the Rhineland on 7 March 1936, violating both the Treaty of Versailles and the Treaty of Locarno, Beaverbrook used his newspapers to argue against Britain taking action to enforce the treaties it had signed.[52] Beaverbrook maintained good relations with Ivan Maisky, the Soviet ambassador in London, writing to him in 1936 about his "...friendly attitude towards your Great Leader" and he was "determined that nothing shall be said or done by any newspaper controlled by me which is likely to disturb your tenure in office".[53] Beaverbrook concluded "while I am free, and my newspapers in the attitude I take to the Russian leader, I must say I admire and praise his conduct of government".[54] In 1936, at the invitation of Joachim von Ribbentrop, the new German ambassador to the Court of St. James, Beaverbrook attended the opening of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, but quickly became bored with the Third Reich and soon returned to Britain."[14]
In the 1930s, while personally attempting to dissuade
Testifying before a Parliamentary inquiry in 1947, 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. Foot said they included Sir Thomas Beecham, Paul Robeson, Haile Selassie and Noël Coward. Beaverbrook himself gave evidence before the inquiry and vehemently denied the allegations; Express Newspapers general manager E. J. Robertson denied that Robeson had been blacklisted, but did admit that Coward had been "boycotted" because he had enraged Beaverbrook with his film In Which We Serve, for in the opening sequence Coward included an ironic shot showing a copy of the Daily Express floating in the dockside rubbish bearing the headline "No War This Year".[57][58][59]
In the late 1930s, Beaverbrook used his newspapers to promote the appeasement policies of the Chamberlain government. The slogan 'There will be no war' was used by the Daily Express.[60] At the time of the Sudetenland crisis, Beaverbrook wrote in a leader: "... do not get caught up in quarrels over foreign boundaries that do not concern you."[14] Beaverbrook was strongly opposed to the famous "guarantee" offered by Chamberlain for Poland in the House of Commons on 31 March 1939 under his usual grounds that Britain had no interests in Poland, and no reason to go to war for Poland.[54] Beaverbrook told Maisky: "I want the empire to remain intact, but I don't understand why for the sake of this we must wage a three-year war to crush "Hitlerism"...Poland, Czechoslovakia? What are they to do with us? Cursed be the day when Chamberlain gave our guarantees to Poland!"[14] On 4 August 1939, a leader in The Daily Express questioned the need for British commitments to Poland as it was declared: "while there are some reasons in favour of an alliance with France...our alliances in Eastern Europe are another matter"."[61] On 7 August 1939, the Daily Express ran a banner headline saying "No War This Year" as it predicated the Danzig crisis would be settled peacefully.[61] In a memo dated 3 March 1943, Beaverbrook was unapologetic about the "no war" headlines as he wrote: "The prophecy proved wrong. The policy, had it been pursued more vigorously might have proved it right".[62] The British historian Daniel Hucker wrote that Beaverbrook was out of touch with the readers of his newspapers in the summer of 1939.[61]
Second World War
Though Beaverbrook did not welcome the British declaration of war on the Reich on 3 September 1939, he had newspapers take an ultra-patriotic line in supporting the war effort, not least because he knew the vast majority of his readers supported the war.[63] During the Second World War, in May 1940, his friend Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister, appointed Beaverbrook as Minister of Aircraft Production. Beaverbrook was given almost dictatorial powers over all aspects of aircraft production.[64] In June 1940, Beaverbrook went with Churchill in a desperate mission to Tours to meet the French government with the aim of keeping France in the war.[65] The French Premier, Paul Reynaud, was against an armistice with Germany and in favor of continuing the war from Algeria, but the strongest voice in the French cabinet was that of Marshal Philippe Pétain, the revered "Victor of Verdun", who argued for an immediate armistice.[65] Churchill devised a scheme for an Anglo-French Union as a way to keep France in the war, which Beaverbrook was strongly opposed to.[66] Unlike Churchill, Beaverbrook did not see any particular importance of keeping France in the war, and was much more indifferent to the prospect of France being defeated than was the prime minister, arguing that Britain still had the Commonwealth and the empire.[66] Churchill's viewpoint that if France were occupied, it would shorten the flying time of the Luftwaffe to bomb Britain from hours to minutes and allow the Kriesgmarine to use the French Atlantic ports to attack shipping in the Western Approaches made no impression on Beaverbrook. The plans for an Anglo-French union fell flat when Pétain - who regarded the plan for a union as a way for the British to seize France's colonial empire - persuaded the French cabinet to reject it.[66]
With Churchill's blessing, Beaverbrook overhauled all aspects of war-time aircraft production. He increased production targets by 15% across the board, took control of aircraft repairs and
Under Beaverbrook, fighter and bomber production increased so much so that Churchill declared: "His personal force and genius made this Aitken's finest hour." Beaverbrook's impact on wartime production has been much debated but he certainly energized production at a time when it was desperately needed. The biography by Anthony Furze of Wilfrid Freeman, a senior official in the Ministry of Aircraft Production, discusses the Beaverbrook myth 'Magic is nine tenth's illusion' describing how Freeman had to limit the worst side-effects of Beaverbrook's short-term thinking (Spellmount Press, 2000).
Beaverbrook resigned on 30 April 1941 and, after a month as Minister of State, Churchill appointed him to the post of
Early on the morning of 22 June 1941, Hess's predications about the coming invasion of the Soviet Union came true when Operation Barbarossa, the largest invasion in history was launched with 3 million German soldiers organized into three army groups invaded the Soviet Union.[77] In September 1941, Beaverbrook headed the British delegation to Moscow with his American counterpart Averell Harriman (Moscow Conference (1941)). This made Beaverbrook the first senior British politician to meet Soviet leader Joseph Stalin since Adolf Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union. Harriman said of Beaverbrook's role in the mission: 'has been a great salesman...His genius never worked more effectively.'[14] Beaverbrook met Stalin at the Kremlin and developed a liking for the Soviet leader, finding him to be a man like himself who regarded committees as time-wasting and preferred action over meetings.[14][78]
Beaverbrook was one of the few close associates to Churchill to be present at his meetings with
In addition to his ministerial roles, Beaverbrook headed the Anglo-American Combined Raw Materials Board from 1942 to 1945 and accompanied Churchill to several wartime meetings with President Roosevelt. He was able to relate to Roosevelt in a different way to Churchill and became close to Roosevelt during these visits. This friendship sometimes irritated Churchill who felt that Beaverbrook was distracting Roosevelt from concentrating on the war effort. For his part Roosevelt seems to have enjoyed the distraction.
Later life
Beaverbrook devoted himself to Churchill's 1945 general election campaign, but a Daily Express headline warning that a Labour victory would amount to the 'Gestapo in Britain' (adapted from a passage in a radio election speech by Churchill on 4 June)[83] was a huge mistake and completely misjudged the public mood.[5] Beaverbrook renounced his British citizenship and left the Conservative Party in 1951, but remained an Empire loyalist throughout his life. In 1947, 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.[59] Through the decision to end the Raj was taken by the Labour prime minister, Clement Attlee, Beaverbrook directed his ire against the last Viceroy, Admiral Louis Mountbatten, who Beaverbrook believed could have somehow defied the government and not granted independence if he had wanted to.[59] In a leader, the Daily Express wrote that "in all the world we have few more dangerous enemies" than Mountbatten and Jawaharlal Nehru.[59] Beaverbrook never forgave Mountbatten and for the rest of his life used the Daily Express to blacken his reputation and always presented Mountbatten in the worse possible light.[59]
Beaverbrook took a typically idiosyncratic line with regard to the Cold War, holding out hopes in the editorial line of the Daily Express until 1948 that the wartime "Big Three" alliance of the Soviet Union, the United States and the United Kingdom should continue after the war.[84] It was only after the Berlin blockade began in 1948 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.[84] Beaverbrook had Wilfred Burchett, an Australian journalist of extreme left-wing views based in East Berlin to run a column in The Daily Express entitled "The Russian Window" starting in October 1948.[85] The nature of Burchett's "Russian Window" reports about life behind the Iron Curtain such as his claims that there was a surplus of luxury goods on sale in shops in Moscow led to accusations that he was engaged in propaganda for the Soviet Union, a nation that Burchett clearly admired.[85] When Beaverbrook asked the editor of the Daily Express, Arthur Christiansen about Burchett after reading several of his "Russian Window" columns, he was told: "He is, I think, a fellow traveler, but nevertheless an able chap".[85] Even after the "Russian Window" column was terminated, Burchett continued to work as a free-lancer for The Daily Express based in Budapest, where he denied in one article that Cardinal József Mindszenty had confessed at his show trial under the influence of "truth drugs".[85] In 1950, 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 Communist game and did the Daily Worker propaganda for them".[86] The photographs were later published in The Daily Worker which presented the executions as typical of justice in South Korea, and led to Beaverbrook to complain that it was a shame that The Daily Express did not have those "real fine pictures".[86]
Beaverbrook used his newspapers to campaign against Mountbatten being appointed First Sea Lord under the grounds that he "gave away" India in 1947.[87] When Mountbatten was appointed First Sea Lord, the Beaverbrook newspapers went out of their way to portray the Royal Navy under Mountbatten's leadership in a negative light. As part of his campaign against Mountbatten, Beaverbrook used his newspapers to make allegations to the effect that Mountbatten had deliberately launched the Dieppe raid of 19 August 1942 - in which the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division had taken heavy losses - in the full knowledge that it would fail to prevent a second front from being opened in 1942.[88] Beaverbrook angrily told Mountbatten at a dinner party hosted by Harriman in London: "You murdered my Canadians to wreck my Second Front campaign!"[89] Tom Driberg, the Labour MP who also worked as the gossip columnist for the Daily Express detailed these allegations in a manuscript of a biography of Beaverbrook he wrote in the mid-1950s, but the threats of a libel suit from Mountbatten led the allegations being removed from the published book.[89] The British historian Adrien Smith argued that the real reason for Beaverbrook's feud with Mountbatten was because one of his various mistresses, Jean Norton, had shared her affections with Mountbatten.[90] Beaverbrook was frequently unfaithful towards his wife, but he was possessive of his mistresses.
In 1956, Beaverbrook used the Daily Express to clamor for war against Egypt after President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the partly British-owned Compagnie universelle du canal maritime de Suez, an act that Beaverbrook considered to be intolerable.[91] When the invasion of Egypt began in October 1956, Beaverbrook had the Daily Express support the war as a justified assertion of British national interests.[91] Beaverbrook regarded the end of the Suez crisis with Britain being forced to withdraw under strong American-Soviet pressure to be a national humiliation, and much of the anti-Americanism he was to express in his last years related to bitterness over the Suez crisis.[91] Beaverbrook likewise favored a hawkish line on the Cyprus Emergency as he used his newspapers to support keeping Cyprus a British colony and regarded the decision to grant Cyprus independence in 1960 again as a national humiliation.[92]
Aitken continued to live lavishly. 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 Churchill was free to stay and paint in the sun at La Capponcina 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".[14]
He opposed both Britain's acceptance of post-war loans from America and Britain's application to join the European Economic Community in 1961.[6] In 1953 he became chancellor-for-life of the University of New Brunswick through an Act of the local legislature.[93] In 1960, the Prime Minister Harold Macmillan decided to have the United Kingdom join the Economic Europan Community (EEC) as the European Union was then called, but he waited until July 1961 to formally make the application at least in part out of the fear over the reaction of the Beaverbrook newspapers.[94] Beaverbrook was strongly opposed to the application and used his newspapers to offer ferocious criticism of Macmillan's application to join the EEC, accusing him of a betrayal of the Commonwealth whom Beaverbrook continued to insist were Britain's natural allies.[94] In 1960, the Daily Express was selling 4,300,000 copies per day, making it into Britain's most popular newspaper.[92]
He became the university's greatest benefactor, fulfilling the same role for the city of
Personal life
On 29 January 1906, in Halifax, Aitken married Gladys Henderson Drury, daughter of Major-General
Beaverbrook remained a widower for many years until 1963 when he married
Historian
After the First World War, Beaverbrook had written Politicians and the Press in 1925, and Politicians and the War in two volumes, the first in 1928 and the second in 1932,[98] republished in one volume in 1960.[99] Upon their original publication, the books were largely ignored by professional historians and the only favourable reviews were in Beaverbrook's own newspapers.[100] However, when the combined edition of Politicians and the War came out, the reviews were more positive.[101] A. J. P. Taylor said it was "Tacitus and Aubrey rolled into one".[101][102]
Later Taylor said: "The enduring merits of the book are really beyond cavil. It provides essential testimony for events during a great political crisis...It contains character sketches worthy of Aubrey. On a wider canvas, it displays the behaviour of political leaders in wartime. The narrative is carried along by rare zest and wit, yet with the detached impartiality of the true scholar".
Men and Power 1917–1918 was published in 1956. It is not a coherent narrative, but is divided by separate episodes centred on one man, such as Carson, Robertson, Rothermere and others. The reviews were favourable, with Taylor's review in The Observer greatly pleasing Beaverbrook.[105] The book sold over 23,000 copies.[106]
When The Decline and Fall of Lloyd George was published in 1963, favourable reviewers included Clement Attlee,
Beaverbrook was both admired and despised in Britain, 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."[108]
Beaverbrook was of an imperialist mindset, with the quote, "There are countries so underdeveloped today that the gift of independence is like the gift of a razor to a child" attributed to him in a panel discussion on Canadian TV.[109]
Death
Lord Beaverbrook died in Leatherhead in 1964, aged 85.[110] He had recently attended a birthday banquet organized 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.
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.[93] His ashes are in the plinth of the bust.[12][page needed]
The Beaverbrook Foundation continues his philanthropic interests. 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.
Legacy
Beaverbrook and his wife Lady Beaverbrook left a considerable legacy to both New Brunswick and the United Kingdom. In 2014, he was named a National Historic Person on the advice of the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada.[111] He is particularly cherished at the University of New Brunswick, to which he devoted most of his later largesse and at which he situated his extensive archival collection of British public life in the first half of the 20th century.[112] Among other gifts over three years from 1946 he tripled the size of the library at UNB, and bestowed the Old Manse Library in Newcastle Miramichi.[112] He endowed the Lord Beaverbrook Overseas Scholarships to send UNB undergraduates for a spell at the University of London.[112] His legacy, and memorials, includes the following buildings:
- UNB:
- Aitken House[113]
- Aitken University Centre
- Lady Beaverbrook Gymnasium
- Lady Beaverbrook Residence[114]
- Beaverbrook House (UNBSJ E-Commerce Centre)
- City of Fredericton, New Brunswick
- Lady Beaverbrook Arena (formerly operated by the University of New Brunswick)[115]
- The Beaverbrook Art Gallery, including world-renowned art collection (New Brunswick's provincial gallery)[116]
- The Fredericton Playhouse
- Lord Beaverbrook Hotel
- Lord Beaverbrook statue in Officer's Square[117]
- City of Miramichi, New Brunswick
- Max Aitken Academy
- Lord Beaverbrook Arena (LBA)
- Beaverbrook Kin Centre (formerly the Beaverbrook Theatre and Town Hall)
- Beaverbrook House (his boyhood home and formerly the Old Manse Library)[118]
- Lord Beaverbrook bust in Queen Elizabeth Park
- Aitken Avenue
- City of Campbellton, New Brunswick
- Lord Beaverbrook School
- City of Saint John, New Brunswick
- Lord Beaverbrook Rink
- City of Ottawa, Ontario
- City of Calgary, Alberta
- McGill University
- The Beaverbrook Chair in Ethics, Media and Communications[119]
Beaverbrook's published works
- Canada in Flanders. London: Hodder & Stoughton. 1916.
- Success. Small, Maynard and Company. 1922. 2003: ISBN 978-0-7661-5409-4.
- Politicians and the Press. London: Hutchinson. 1925.
- Politicians and the War, Vol. 1. London: Oldbourne. 1928.
- Politicians and the War, Vol. 2. London: Oldbourne. 1932.
- The Resources of The British Empire. London: Lane. 1934.
- Why Didn't you Help the Finns? Are you in the Hands of the Jews? And 10 Questions, Answers. London: London Express. 1939.
- Spirit of the Soviet Union. London: The Pilot Press. 1942.
- Don't Trust to Luck. London: London Express Newspaper. 1954.
- The Three Keys to Success. London: Hawthorn. 1956.
- Men and Power, 1917–1918. North Haven, Connecticut: The Shoe String Press. 1956.
- Friends: Sixty years of Intimate personal relations with Richard Bedford Bennett. London: Heinemann. 1959.
- Courage, The Story of Sir James Dunn. Fredericton: Brunswick Press. 1961.
- My Early Life. Fredericton: Atlantic Advocate Book. 1962.
- The Divine Propagandist. London: Heinemann. 1962.
- The Decline and Fall of Lloyd George: And Great Was the Fall Thereof. London: Collins. 1963. 1981: ISBN 978-0-313-23007-3
- The Abdication of Edward VIII. New York: Atheneum. 1966.
In popular culture
For a period of time Beaverbrook employed novelist Evelyn Waugh in London and abroad. Waugh later lampooned his employer by portraying him as Lord Copper in Scoop and as Lord Monomark in both Put Out More Flags and Vile Bodies.
The Kinks recorded "Mr Churchill Says" for their 1969 album Arthur, which contains the lines: "Mr Beaverbrook says: 'We've gotta save our tin/And all the garden gates and empty cans are gonna make us win...'."[citation needed]
Beaverbrook was one of eight notable Britons cited in
See also
Notes
- ^ William Cuthbert Aitken served under the Bounty or Augmentation Scheme, see Beaverbrook (1963), p. 107
References
- ^ Mcdowall, Duncan (10 April 2017). "Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook". The Canadian Encyclopedia (online ed.). Historica Canada.
- ^ Churchill 1949, pp. 12–13.
- ^ Jackson, Peter; de Castella, Tom (14 July 2011). "Clash of the press titans". BBC News.
- ISBN 978-0-7614-7231-5.[page needed]
- ^ ISBN 0-89356-321-8.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Boyce.
- ^ Marchildon (1996), pp. 40–41.
- ^ Marchildon (1996), pp. 97–121, chapter 5: The Montreal Engineering Company.
- ^ "100 Years, 100 People:1909–1919". TransAlta. 2 December 2011. Retrieved 20 October 2014.
- ^ "Canadian Cement Scandal" (PDF). The New York Times. 13 May 1911.
- ^ Taylor 1972, pp. 38–41.
- ^ a b c d e f g Aitken Kidd (1988).
- ^ Duffy, Michael (22 August 2009). "Who's Who – Lord Beaverbrook". Firstworldwar.com.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Ascherson, Neal (24 October 2019). "Ask Anyone in Canada". The London Review of Books. Retrieved 15 October 2022.
- ^ a b c d MacKenzie & Dutil (2011), p. 211.
- ^ Beaverbrook (1963), pp. 16–17
- ISBN 1-84046-151-9.
- ^ ISBN 0-7181-2314-X.
- ^ Blake (1955), pp. 346–347
- ^ "No. 29913". The London Gazette. 23 January 1917. p. 842.
- ^ "No. 30557". The London Gazette. 5 March 1918. p. 2775.
- ^ Taylor (1972), pp. 137 (quote), 129, 135, 136.
- ^ Curran & Seaton (2009), [1]
- ^ Beaverbrook (1963), p. 65ff
- ^ a b c d Woods (1990), p. 35.
- ^ a b Olmsted (2022), p. 92-93.
- ^ a b c Kinvig (2007), p. xix.
- ^ Kinvig (2007), p. 247.
- ^ Kinvig (2007), p. 247-248.
- ^ Foster (2016), p. 24.
- ^ a b Knüsel (2016), p. 80-81.
- ^ Knüsel (2016), p. 80.
- ^ Knüsel (2016), p. 83.
- ^ a b c d e f Olmsted (2022), p. 95.
- ^ Foster (2016), p. 23.
- ^ Knüsel (2016), p. 87.
- ^ Olmsted (2022), p. 100.
- ^ Foster (2016), p. 253.
- ^ Olmsted (2022), p. 94.
- ^ Woods (1990), p. 35-36.
- ^ a b Woods (1990), p. 36.
- ^ a b c d e f Williamson (2003), p. 121.
- ^ a b c d e Williamson (2003), p. 122.
- ISBN 978-1-349-02346-2.
- ^ a b c Olmsted (2022), p. 96.
- ^ a b Olmsted (2022), p. 9.
- ^ Foster (2016), p. 2e.
- ^ a b Olmsted (2022), p. 96-97.
- ^ a b Olmsted (2022), p. 97.
- ^ a b Olmsted (2022), p. 103.
- ^ Olmsted (2022), p. 103-104.
- ^ Foster (2016), p. 24-25.
- ^ a b Foster (2016), p. 25.
- ^ Olmsted (2022), p. 104.
- ^ a b c Knüsel (2016), p. 147.
- ^ Movie 'In Which We Serve' at 0:05:57
- ^ Sweet 2005, p. 173.
- ^ a b c d e Chisholm & Davie (1993), p. 493.
- ISBN 978-0-7183-0674-8.
- ^ a b c Hucker (2016), p. 184.
- ^ Hucker (2016), p. 184-185.
- ^ Olmsted (2022), p. 163.
- ^ a b c Leasor (2001), p. 101.
- ^ a b Chisholm & Davie (1993), p. 378.
- ^ a b c Chisholm & Davie (1993), p. 379.
- ISBN 1-85285-464-2.
- ^ a b Leasor (2001), p. 100.
- ^ "Great Britain: Shirts On". Time. 16 September 1940. Archived from the original on 6 March 2011.
- ^ Deighton (1980), pp. 164–165.
- ^ Leasor (2001), p. 102.
- ^ Aitken Kidd (1988)[page needed]
• "The Battle of Britain". The London Gazette (Supplement). No. 37719. 11 September 1946. pp. 4543–.
• "Battle of Britain in the Words of Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding". Spitfiresite.com. 20 August 1941. Archived from the original on 28 April 2011. Retrieved 29 April 2017. - ^ Leasor (2001), p. 110-111.
- ^ a b Leasor (2001), p. 110.
- ^ Leasor (2001), p. 111.
- ^ a b c Chisholm & Davie (1993), p. 408.
- ^ Chisholm & Davie (1993), p. 402.
- ^ Leasor (2001), p. 163-164.
- ^ "THE ROYAL NAVY DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR". Imperial War Museum.
- ^ "Lord Beaverbrook". Spartacus. Archived from the original on 29 March 2010. Retrieved 6 July 2011.
- ^ Leasor (2001), p. 166-167.
- ^ a b Kitchen (1986), p. 149.
- ISBN 978-0-224-02768-7.
- ^ a b Jenks (2006), p. 38.
- ^ a b c d Jenks (2006), p. 45.
- ^ a b Jenks (2006), p. 46.
- ^ May (1994), p. 673.
- ^ Smith (2010), p. 12-13.
- ^ a b Smith (2010), p. 13.
- ^ Smith (2010), p. 13-14.
- ^ a b c Chisholm & Davie (1993), p. 495.
- ^ a b Chisholm & Davie (1993), p. 512.
- ^ a b Reid, John (2016). "A Conversation with Ann Moyal, Lord Beaverbrook's Researcher". Journal of New Brunswick Studies. 7 (2).
- ^ a b Goodlad & Pearce (2013), p. 178.
- ^ Chisholm & Davie (1993), p. 505.
- ^ "Lady Jeanne Louise Campbell (later Lady Mailer, later Lady Cram)". www.npg.org.uk. National Portrait Gallery, London. Retrieved 7 May 2018.
- ^ Jameson, Leonie (2 December 1996). "Sex and Power". The Independent. Archived from the original on 12 May 2022.
- JSTOR 4048514.
- ^ Taylor (1972), p. 102.
- ^ Taylor (1972), p. 251.
- ^ a b McEwen, J.M. "Lord Beaverbrook: Historian Extraordinary" (PDF). Dalhousie Review. 59 (1): 129–143.
- ^ Taylor (1972), p. 645.
- ^ Taylor (1972), pp. 102–103.
- ^ Elliot, John (1981). "Aitken, William Maxwell, first Baron Beaverbrook (1879–1964)". Dictionary of National Biography.
- ^ Taylor (1972), pp. 629–630.
- ^ Taylor (1972), p. 629.
- ^ a b Taylor (1972), p. 655.
- ^ Low, David (1956). Low's Autobiography. London: Michael Joseph. p. 175.
- ^ The perils of independence and Irish cry-babies. Fighting Words. CBC Digital Archives. 19 March 1961.
- ^ "Lord Beaverbrook Dead at 85; Founder of Newspaper Empire; Member of Churchill's War Cabinet Guided Britain's Aircraft Production". The New York Times. 10 June 1964.
- ^ Aitken, Sir William Maxwell (Lord Beaverbrook) National Historic Person. Directory of Federal Heritage Designations. Parks Canada.
- ^ a b c Young, Murray (18 October 1979). "A Tribute To Lord Beaverbrook: Founders' Day Address October 18th, 1979". UNB Libraries.
- ^ "Aitken House". University of New Brunswick. Retrieved 6 July 2011.
- ^ "Lady Beaverbrook Residence". University of New Brunswick. Retrieved 6 July 2011.
- ^ Lady Beaverbrook Rink. Canadian Register of Historic Places.
- ^ Beaverbrook Art Gallery. Canadian Register of Historic Places.
- ^ Military Compound. Canadian Register of Historic Places.
- ^ Beaverbrook House. Canadian Register of Historic Places.
• Beaverbrook House. Canadian Register of Historic Places. - ^ "Raboy, Marc". McGill University. Retrieved 6 July 2011.
- ^ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: Norway 2 England 1 1981 Commentary – via YouTube.
• "England to play Norway and Belgium in pre-Euro 2012 friendlies". BBC. 5 January 2012.
Sources
- ISBN 978-0-00-217602-6.
- Beaverbrook, Lord (1963). The Decline and Fall of Lloyd George. London: Collins.
- Blake, Robert (1955). The Unknown Prime Minister: The Life and Times of Andrew Bonar Law, 1858–1923. Eyre & Spottiswoode.
- doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/30358. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- Chisholm, Anne; ISBN 978-0-394-56879-9.
- OCLC 396145.
- Curran, James; ISBN 978-0-415-46699-8.
- ISBN 0-698-11033-1.
- Foster, Alan (2016). "The British Press and the Coming of the Cold War". In Anne Deighton (ed.). Britain and the Cold War. London: Macmillan. pp. 11–31. ISBN 978-1-349-10756-8.
- MacKenzie, David; Dutil, Patrice (2011). Canada 1911: The Decisive Election that Shaped the Country. Toronto: Dundurn.
- Hucker, Daniel (2016). Public Opinion and the End of Appeasement in Britain and France. London: Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-317-07354-3.
- Goodlad, Graham; Pearce, Robert (2013). British Prime Ministers From Balfour to Brown. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-66983-2.
- Jenks, John (2006). British Propaganda and News Media in the Cold War. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-2675-5.
- Kinvig, Clifford (2007). Churchill's Crusade The British Invasion of Russia, 1918-1920. London: Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-1-84725-021-6.
- Knüsel, Ariane (2016). Framing China Media Images and Political Debates in Britain, the USA and Switzerland, 1900-1950. London: Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-317-13360-5.
- Kitchen, Martin (1986). British Policy Towards the Soviet Union During the Second World War. London: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-349-08264-3.
- Leasor, James (2001). War at the Top. New York: House of Stratus. ISBN 978-0-7551-0049-1.
- Marchildon, Gregory P. (1996). Profits and Politics: Beaverbrook and the Gilded Age of Canadian Finance. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-0-8020-0740-7.
- May, Ernest (1994). "The News Media and Diplomacy". In Gordon A. Craig, Francis L. Loewenheim (ed.). The Diplomats 1939-1979. Princeton: Princeton University Press. pp. 665–700. ISBN 978-0-691-19446-2.
- Olmsted, Kathryn (2022). The Newspaper Axis: Six Press Barons Who Enabled Hitler. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-25642-0.
- Rayburn, Alan (1975). Geographical Names of New Brunswick. Ottawa: Canadian Permanent Committee on Geographical Names.
- Smith, Adrian (2010). Mountbatten Apprentice War Lord. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-0-85771-492-3.
- ISBN 978-0-571-21297-2.
- ISBN 0-671-21376-8.
- ISBN 978-0-521-52141-3.
- Woods, Randall Bennett (1990). A Changing of the Guard: Anglo-American Relations, 1941-1946. Raleigh: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-1877-0.
Further reading
- Bingham, Adrian (May 2013). "'An Organ of Uplift?' The popular press and political culture in interwar Britain". S2CID 142798323.
- Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1922). Encyclopædia Britannica (12th ed.). London & New York: The Encyclopædia Britannica Company. .
- Dick, Murray (2015). "Just Fancy That: An Analysis of Infographic Propaganda in The Daily Express, 1956–1959". Journalism Studies. 16 (2): 152–174. S2CID 148122565.
- Koss, Stephen E. (1984). The Rise and Fall of the Political Press in Britain: The Twentieth Century, Volume 2. University of North Carolina Press.
- Lovell, Kristopher (2017). "The 'Common Wealth Circus': Popular Politics and the Popular Press in Wartime Britain, 1941–1945". Media History. 23 (3–4): 427–450. S2CID 158931370.
- ISBN 978-0-670-06614-8.
- ISBN 978-1-78074-614-2.
External links
- Burant, Jim. Ottawa Art & Artists: An Illustrated History. Toronto: Art Canada Institute, 2022. ISBN 978-1-4871-0289-0
- Lord Beaverbrook, a Week at the Office[permanent dead link]
- Works by Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook at Project Gutenberg
- Works by Max Aitken at Faded Page (Canada)
- Works by or about Max Aitken at Internet Archive
- Works by or about Lord Beaverbrook at Internet Archive
- "Archival material relating to Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook". UK National Archives.
- UK Parliamentary Archives, Beaverbrook Papers
- UK Parliamentary Archives, Beaverbrook Library Papers
- Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Max Aitken
- Newspaper clippings about Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW