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William Maxwell Aitken Beaverbrook

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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"WILLIAM MAXWELL AITKEN BEAVERBROOK, 1ST Baron (1879-), British politician, was born at Newcastle, New Brunswick, on May 25 1879, the son of the Rev. William Aitken, Presbyterian minister of Newcastle. He was educated at Newcastle, and afterwards went into business, where he had a very successful career as a financier. Having made ' The Financial Secretary to the Admiralty answered in the affirmative a question asked in the House of Commons on May 4 1921 by Visct. Curzon as to whether the account given in this book might be taken as correct. Its publication then relieved Adml. Beatty of any responsibility for the somewhat misleading version originally issued by the Admiralty of his own dispatch after the battle.

a large fortune at a comparatively early age, he came to England in 1910, and stood successfully for the House of Commons as Unionist candidate for Ashton-under-Lyne. He was from the first an intimate friend and adviser of Mr. Bonar Law when the latter became the Unionist leader. In 1911 he was knighted. In 1915 he went to France with the Canadian expeditionary force as " Eye-Witness," and in 1916 became the representative of the Canadian Government at the front, also doing valuable propaganda work. He was created a baronet in June 1916, and the same year was raised to the peerage. In 1917 he was appointed officer in charge of the Canadian war records, and in 1918 entered the Government as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in succession to Lord Cawley and director of the Ministry of Information in succession to Sir Edward Carson, but resigned in Oct. of the same year. Lord Beaverbrook became one of the chief proprietors of the London Daily Express, and in 1916-7 published Canada in Flanders.