Beaverbrook, (William) Max(well) Aitken (1879–1964)

Canadian-born British financier, proprietor and publisher of the Daily Express group of newspapers, and a UK government minister in cabinets during both world wars. He bought a majority interest in the Daily Express in 1916, founded the Sunday Express in 1918, and bought the London Evening Standard in 1923. He served in David Lloyd George's World War I cabinet and Winston Churchill's World War II cabinet.

Having made a fortune in cement in Canada, he entered British politics, first in support of Andrew Bonar Law, then of Lloyd George, becoming minister of information 1918–19. In World War II he was minister of supply 1941. He received a knighthood in 1911 and was made a baronet in 1916.

Beaverbrook was born in Maple, Ontario, the son of an immigrant Presbyterian minister. After studying law at the University of New Brunswick he became a life insurance salesman, going on to deal in bonds, and then made a fortune out of a controversial merger of three companies into the Canadian Cement Company. He moved to England in 1910 and, with the encouragement of British politician Andrew Bonar Law (who was also born in Canada), was elected as Conservative member of Parliament for Ashton-under-Lyne in the UK general election of December that year. After the outbreak of World War I he represented the Canadian government as an observer (with Canadian troops serving on the Western front) and established the Canadian War Records Office. He chronicled these events in his memoir, Canada in Flanders (1916–18).

By 1916 he had returned to London and accepted the chairmanship of the War Office Committee for Propaganda. Beaverbrook played a supportive role in Lloyd George's bid for political power which brought down the Asquith government, although he did not get a cabinet post until 1918 when he served as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and minister of information.

Meanwhile, he had bought a controlling interest (for £17,500) in the ailing Daily Express in 1916. After resigning his government office, he founded the Sunday Express and then bought the London Evening Standard. The Daily Express moved into profit in 1922 and rose from a circulation of 277,000 in 1918 to two million in 1936, and four million in 1949.

Between the wars he used his newspapers to campaign for empire free trade, in opposition to the then prime minister, Stanley Baldwin. During World War II he rejoined the British cabinet as minister of aircraft production (1940–41) and minister of supply (1941), before becoming British lend-lease administrator in the USA in 1942 and then Lord Privy Seal from 1943 to 1945.

Beaverbrook resigned from the Conservative Party in 1949 and his newspapers became politically independent. He continued to campaign for free trade and later opposed British entry to the European Economic Community.

His other memoirs include Politicians and the Press (1925), Men and Power: 1917–18 (1936), and The Decline and Fall of Lloyd George (1963).