Inspirational Quotes by Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook (British Politician, Journalist)

Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook (1879–1964,) fully William Maxwell Aitken, was a Canadian-born British Conservative politician and newspaper proprietor. He rose to distinction as a merger mogul in Canada before drifting into British politics and mass-circulation journalism. Beaverbrook was also Minister of Aircraft Production in Winston Churchill’s cabinet (1940.)

Born in Maple, Ontario, a Presbyterian minister’s son, Aitken was educated in Newcastle, New Brunswick. He was a stockbroker in 1907 and, by 1910, had made a fortune out by amalgamating the entire cement industry in Canada. He went to Great Britain in 1910, entered parliament (1911–16,) and became a private secretary to Prime Minister Bonar Law. He was an observer at the Western Front early in World War I and wrote Canada in Flanders (1917.) When Lloyd George became prime minister, Aitken was made Minister of Information (1918.)

In 1919, Aitken plunged into journalism and overwhelmed ‘Fleet Street’ by buying a majority interest in the Daily Express. He enhanced its appeal to the conservative working class with intensely patriotic news and editorials. He made the Daily Express the most widely read daily newspaper globally. He founded the Sunday Express (1921) and bought the Evening Standard (1929.)

In World War II, Churchill successfully harnessed Aitken’s dynamic administrative powers to produce much-needed aircraft. He was made Minister of Supply (1941–42.)

After World War II, Aitken became the Chancellor of the University of New Brunswick in 1947. He gained status as a historian with his books on political and military history—Politicians and the Press (1925,) Politicians and the War (1928–32,) Men and Power (1956,) The Decline and Fall of Lloyd George (1963,) and The Abdication of King Edward VIII (1966.)

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