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Lord Beaverbrook

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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
1879-1964
UK publisher, politician, author

  1. Introduction
  2. Stories
  3. Biographical summary
  4. See also
  5. Further reading
  6. References

1. Introduction

‘The Beaver’ was a press magnate, politician and author. He became wealthy as a Canadian businessman, moved to the UK at age 31 and was soon a politician, knight and peer. He purchased the Daily Express and turned it into the UK’s highest circulation newspaper in the 1930s and 1940s, using it for his own propaganda crusades. Churchill appointed him to increase aircraft production in World War II, which he did highly effectively. His many books were mainly about political and military history. He retained a great fondness for Canada, bestowing considerable sums on institutions there, particularly in New Brunswick.

2. Stories

  • Max Aitken’s introduction to UK politics was greatly assisted by his wealth and his new friendship with Canadian-born Andrew Bonar Law.
  • Aitken bought the mansion Cherkley Court in Surrey in 1910, where he would host numerous dignitaries and various mistresses over the next fifty years.
  • Many people disliked or were wary of Beaverbrook, including Clementine, but Churchill enjoyed his company, loyalty and ability to get things done.
  • The Daily Express logo of a crusader was introduced in 1930, supporting Beaverbrook’s creation of a political party promoting the British Empire as a free trade bloc.
  • Beaverbrook’s vital role in maximising aircraft production in World War II included a popular Spitfire sponsorship scheme, from £5000 for a whole aircraft down to sixpence for a rivet.
  • Beaverbrook’s son became Lord Beaverbrook for three days before disclaiming the title.
  • Beaverbrook and his second wife Marcia, Lady Dunn, were substantial donors to Canadian institutions, particularly in New Brunswick.

Max Aitken’s introduction to UK politics was greatly assisted by his wealth and his new friendship with Canadian-born Andrew Bonar Law.

Aitken consolidated the cement industry in Canada in the early 1900s, becoming a millionaire but sailing close to the legal wind. Spotting further business opportunities in the UK, he relocated in 1909. He befriended Andrew Bonar Law who became Conservative leader in 1911 and prime minister in 1922 (the UK’s first foreign-born Prime Minister, the second being Boris Johnson, born in New York). Their backgrounds had much in common: both were born in New Brunswick, had Scottish blood, were sons of the manse and were successful businessmen before becoming involved in politics.

Aitken became a Conservative Member of Parliament in 1910 and was knighted in 1911, primarily in anticipation of his sizeable financial contributions for political purposes. He bought the Daily Express newspaper in 1916. He was made a peer (Lord Beaverbrook) in 1917, against the wishes of George V and many politicians in Canada who viewed UK peerages for Canadian citizens as interference with domestic democracy, leading to the creation of a separate Canadian honours system.

Aitken’s title was a contraction of Beaver Brook, a stream near his home town Newcastle in New Brunswick in which he used to swim and fish as a boy. Upon Beaverbrook’s peerage, the author Rudyard Kipling, his friend and godfather to his second son, wrote to him saying, ‘What gratifies me most is that my Godson is now the Honourable* Peter, which fact I hope is duly brought home to him when he is bad.’1

He continued: ‘For goodness sake take a little trouble in working out your coat of arms. [… Your motto] ought to be “Res mihi non me rebus” […] “I would rather control things than be controlled by them.” It’s a quotation from Horace.’[2]

Given Beaverbrook’s forceful character, it met with his approval and was adopted. Unfortunately he did not take enough trouble with the coat of arms, which Kipling helped to design, as it included two beavers with a fish in their mouths, despite the fact that beavers do not eat fish.

* Sons and daughters of peers have the title ‘The Honourable’: see the UK honours system.

Aitken bought the mansion Cherkley Court in Surrey in 1910, where he would host numerous dignitaries and various mistresses over the next fifty years.

On moving to the UK, Aitken wasted no time in purchasing a large property where he could invite his growing network of contacts. Driving past Cherkley Court in Surrey with Rudyard Kipling, he spotted a ‘For Sale’ sign, and bought it after a single viewing for £30,000 (equivalent to nearly £3.5 million today). This included 380 acres but no heating or electricity, which he installed as well as adding a swimming pool, tennis court and the first private home cinema in the UK.

Visitors included politicians, writers, actors and many others. Churchill’s signature does not appear in the visitors’ book until 1916, although they first met in 1911, introduced by F.E. Smith (later Lord Birkenhead).

One of Beaverbrook’s mistresses, society beauty Mrs Jean Norton, became an almost permanent resident in a garden cottage at Cherkley Court. She ran his cinema in London and then operated his Daily Express switchboard, while his wife Gladys ran the canteen. Gladys died in 1927 at age 42 from a brain tumour and possibly also distress.

Jean also died young, aged 46, in 1945, but not before she had been replaced by a Jewish Austrian ballerina, Lily Ernst, whom Beaverbrook had helped to escape from Nazi persecution. She too moved into a Cherkley Court cottage, nominally as a translator of Hitler’s radio broadcasts, but also fell from favour over time.

Numerous other liaisons have been ascribed to Beaverbrook. Catharina ‘Toto’ Koopman, a Dutch-Javanese actress, became involved with him but then moved on via Randolph Churchill to Beaverbrook’s son, also called Max. Max Senior was furious and offered increasingly generous financial incentives to his son not to marry her, culminating in a contractual lifetime annuity to Toto to prevent a marriage.

After Beaverbrook’s death, Cherkley Court house passed to his son and was acquired in 1982 by the Beaverbrook Foundation, a charity established by Max Senior. The house was renovated extensively and opened to the public in 2007. After declining attendance, it was sold to a developer in 2010 which converted it into a luxury hotel called Beaverbrook.

Many people disliked or were wary of Beaverbrook, including Clementine, but Churchill enjoyed his company, loyalty and ability to get things done.

Author Charles Williams gives a partial list of those who openly disliked him: ‘Kings George V and VI, Clement Attlee, Stanley Baldwin, Lords Alanbrooke and Curzon, Hugh Dalton, Ernest Bevin, as well as a large segment of the Canadian political and industrial establishments.’3 Another was Evelyn Waugh, who is said to have made the comment: ‘Of course I believe in the devil. How else could I account for Lord Beaverbrook?’4

He was one of the three main B’s amongst Churchill’s friends whom Clementine distrusted, the other two being Birkenhead (F.E. Smith) and Bracken (Brendan, whom she later grew to like). In 1926 she wrote to Winston that Beaverbrook manages ‘to defile any subject he touches’5 and 16 years later she was still concerned about his influence, advising Winston to leave him out of his inner political circle: ‘Try ridding yourself of this microbe which some people fear is in your blood – Exorcise this bottle Imp & see if the air is not clearer & purer.’6

Churchill’s private secretary John Colville wrote, ‘Many people thought he was evil. He was, in fact, impish and he was capable of great kindness. […] In 1953, when Churchill had his stroke, nobody rallied more whole-heartedly to his help’7 (see Camrose regarding the incident).

Beaverbrook was aware of his reputation and sometimes played on it, including a home movie made at Cherkley Court which H.G. Wells helped to produce, in which Beaverbrook plays a heartless and bad-tempered character.

The Churchills (including Clementine) were the beneficiaries of Beaverbrook’s hospitality on many occasions, including the use of his villa La Capponcina in France on the Monaco border, where they spent their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Beaverbrook had a lift installed at Chartwell to assist the slowing Churchill, aged 78, fortuitously the year before his major stroke. Other gifts included a refrigerator for champagne and some bantam hens. Apart from Beaverbrook’s generosity, Churchill valued his strong resolve and invigorating energy. When asked why he was friendly with him, Churchill is said to have replied, ‘Some people take drugs. I take Max.’8

The Daily Express logo of a crusader was introduced in 1930, supporting Beaverbrook’s creation of a political party promoting the British Empire as a free trade bloc.

When Aitken purchased the Daily Express in 1916, its header included the royal coat of arms. This layout remained the same until 1930, when a crusader figure was added, and the royal arms disappeared in 1932. Aitken used the figure to indicate support for his Empire Free Trade Crusade, which sought free trade within the British Empire but tariffs and barriers against other blocs. He formed the United Empire Party in 1930 for this purpose, supported by Lord Rothermere, owner of the Daily Mail, Daily Mirror and other newspapers.

Beaverbrook and Rothermere blamed the Conservatives’ 1929 election loss on Stanley Baldwin for being too left-wing. They also feared that he would not oppose Labour’s lack of support for maintaining the British Empire. The new party was intended to take seats from the Conservatives and to lead to Baldwin being ousted. After an initial success in a by-election, its next candidate was defeated by Duff Cooper, supported by the Times and the Telegraph, and the campaign quickly fizzled out.

Beaverbrook nevertheless maintained his belief in Empire, and put his crusader in chains in 1951, indicating his displeasure at the Churchill government’s lack of preferential imperial policies. The chains would later become a symbol of protest against the UK seeking to join the Common Market but were removed after Beaverbrook’s death in 1964.

The prominence of the Daily Express in the mid-twentieth century was reflected in the satirical magazine Private Eye deciding to make their own logo a parody of the crusader. The cartoon knight ‘Gnitty’ has a bent sword, a ball and chain, and looks rather dejected. He was designed by the magazine’s co-founder Willie Rushton, appeared on the first issue in October 1961, and remains as its logo today.

The knight was satirised further when the publisher Robert Maxwell won a libel case against Private Eye in 1986. He produced a spoof version called Not Private Eye. Gnitty was turned to face the other way and was given a smile.

Beaverbrook’s vital role in maximising aircraft production in World War II included a popular Spitfire sponsorship scheme, from £5000 for a whole aircraft down to sixpence for a rivet.

Churchill created a new Ministry of Aircraft Production in May 1940 and put Beaverbrook in charge, trusting in his vigour and efficiency despite earlier support for the appeasement of Hitler. Beaverbrook’s first week in the job was a whirlwind. After a three-day tour of aircraft factories, he set production targets 15 percent above what was considered achievable. He made his London home (Stornoway House) the ministry’s temporary headquarters and did away with job descriptions and paperwork. He decided to focus on fighter production, mainly Spitfires and Hurricanes.

He called the chairman of a new Spitfire factory to ask why no aircraft had yet been made and was met with various excuses and a sarcastic question as to whether he would like to take over the factory. Beaverbrook accepted immediately, put the phone down and appointed new managers. He appealed to aircraft factory workers to move to new shift patterns and filled vacancies for aircraft fitters with garage workers who were unemployed due to petrol rationing. He created civilian organisations to repair damaged aircraft.

Spitfire funds were launched, raising money and engaging public commitment. Cities, organisations and individuals were able to sponsor a whole aircraft, a wing, or various other components. The sponsorship amount of £5000 per aircraft (equivalent to £275,000 today) was a portion of the actual cost of around £12,000. Aircraft could be named at the sponsors’ discretion: The Kennel Club, for example, chose ‘The Dog Fighter’. Countries and territories also became involved, with Trinidad, the Gold Coast (now Ghana) and Hong Kong sponsoring an entire squadron. Even neutral Uruguay paid for 17 aircraft.

In the months to come, Beaverbrook would maintain fighter production at nearly two and a half times German levels, a crucial differential, particularly during Battle of Britain attrition in July to October 1940. He made a radio appeal for pots and pans for aircraft materials, although they were not particularly usable; it was more of a motivational ploy. He also commandeered metal fencing, resulting in former prime minister Stanley Baldwin losing his country house’s gates (perhaps in a somewhat vindictive manner by Beaverbrook).

Later, Churchill wrote: ‘All his [Beaverbrook’s] remarkable qualities fitted the need. His personal buoyancy and vigour were a tonic. I was glad to be able sometimes to lean on him. He did not fail. This was his hour.’9

Beaverbrook’s son became Lord Beaverbrook for three days before disclaiming the title.

Beaverbrook died in 1964, aged 85, and his title passed to Max junior who renounced it, saying, ‘There’ll only be one Lord Beaverbrook as long as I’m alive’.10 He kept his inherited baronetcy so was known as Sir Max (see the UK honours system). He was a fighter ace, downing 16 and a half enemy aircraft (the half being a shared result). His son, also Max, became 3rd Baron Beaverbrook, who had a son and grandson, also both called Max Aitken.

The first baron’s second son, Peter, was an army captain and racing driver but died from a heart attack from a morphine reaction after a yachting accident, aged 34. Daughter Janet was a socialite, flying helicopters and breaking her back twice by falling from her horses. The first of her three husbands was Ian Campbell, future Duke of Argyll. TV personality Jodie Kidd is a granddaughter from her third marriage. In later life she wrote an autobiography The Beaverbrook Girl (1987) which includes descriptions of her father.

Former Conservative cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken is Beaverbrook’s great-nephew, the grandson of Beaverbrook’s brother Mauns. He was convicted of perjury in 1999 and served nearly seven months in prison. In 1962 he wrote to his great-uncle, whom he had never met due to family feuds. He received a lunch invitation, or rather a telegram summons (‘Come lunch Sunday, Beaverbrook’)11 and soon became a regular visitor to Cherkley Court. He was impressed by the octogenarian’s prodigious memory, including on one occasion his recitation of over three minutes of a 1915 speech by David Lloyd George.

Beaverbrook’s advice to Jonathan (with his own upcoming marriage to Lady Dunn in mind) was, ‘Never be afraid to marry a rich woman!’12 Jonathan did indeed get involved with a rich woman but did not marry her, having an affair with Soraya Khashoggi, wife of arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi. This led to the birth of his daughter Petrina Khashoggi in 1979, proved by DNA test nearly twenty years later. Earlier he had broken off a relationship with Margaret Thatcher’s daughter Carol, causing a rift with the future prime minister. He became an Anglican priest in 2019.

Beaverbrook and his second wife Marcia, Lady Dunn, were substantial donors to Canadian institutions, particularly in New Brunswick.

Marcia Christoforides was a long-serving secretary for Sir James Dunn, a Canadian lawyer, financier and industrialist, and became his third wife in 1942. In 1947, Sir James was in a New York restaurant and noticed someone looking at him throughout the meal. It turned out to be Salvador Dalí, who was convinced that Dunn looked like Caesar, and persuaded him to have his portrait painted as such (La Turbie, 1949). Becoming friends with the Dunns, Dalí painted Marcia on horseback (Equestrian Fantasy, 1954) and did a second portrait of Sir James (Sunrise, 1958).  The Dunns procured many valuable paintings and commissioned various of their own, including twelve portraits by Walter Sickert, one of which was of Beaverbrook.

The Dunns were Beaverbrook’s friends and art advisors, helping him to develop his collection. Sir James died in 1956, passing on half of his considerable wealth to his widow. She became Beaverbrook’s constant companion and they were married seven years later.

Beaverbrook bequeathed his collection in 1959 to the newly built Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton, New Brunswick, including over 300 works by masters such as Turner, Constable, Gainsborough and Reynolds and contemporary artists such as Augustus John and Graham Sutherland.

The Dunn Foundation and Lady Dunn (later Lady Beaverbrook) also contributed many works, including Dalí paintings and three Sickert portraits. The collection became the subject of rancorous ownership disputes involving two Beaverbrook Foundations (UK and Canada), the Dunn Foundation and Lady Beaverbrook. These were finally resolved in 2010 and 2014.

Among other beneficiaries of the Beaverbrooks’ largesse was the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, which appointed Beaverbrook as Chancellor in 1953 until his death, succeeded by his son Sir Max. The university’s coat of arms includes two beavers in recognition of Beaverbrook, but with no fish in their mouths. His ashes are contained under a bust of himself by Oscar Nemon (who also made sculptures of Churchill) in Newcastle Town Square, Miramichi (pronounced Meera-me-SHEE), New Brunswick.

3. Biographical summary

OccupationPress magnate, politician, author
CountryCanada, UK (UK citizenship renounced 1951)
CareerConservative MP for Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester (1910-16). Owner of the Daily Express (1916-64). Minister of Information (1918). Owner of the Evening Standard (1923-64). Minister of Aircraft Production (1940-41). Minister of Supply (1941-42). Minister of War Production (1942: 16 days). Lord Privy Seal (1943-45). He published many works between 1916 and 1966, mainly historical.
Born1879 in Maple, Ontario, Canada (five years older than Churchill)
FatherWilliam Aitken (1834-1913), Presbyterian minister
MotherJane ‘Jennie’ Noble (1846-1927), daughter of a farmer/shopkeeper
SiblingsSixth of 10 children:
1. Sarah ‘Rahno’ (1868-1945), hospital superintendent
2. Annie ‘Nan’ (1870-1942), hospital superintendent
3. Robert ‘Traven’ (1873-1939), army captain
4. Catherine ‘Katie’ (c.1875-c.1881), died of diphtheria, age 6
5. Joseph Magnus ‘Mauns’ (1878-1950), bank manager; grandfather of Jonathan Aitken, Conservative MP
6. William ‘Max’ (1879-1964)
7. Arthur (1883-1964), medic
8. Jean (1885-1972), librarian
9. Allan ‘Bud’ (1887-1959), army major, stockbroker
10. Laura (1892-1954)
EducationPublic Board School, Newcastle, New Brunswick, Canada; King’s College Law School, Fredericton, New Brunswick (incomplete)
Spouses1. Gladys Drury (1885-1927), daughter of Lieutenant Colonel Charles Drury; m. 1906 until her death aged 42 from a brain tumour
2. Marcia Christoforides (1909-1994), daughter of a Greek-Cypriot tobacco merchant; m. 1963 until Beaverbrook’s death the following year; formerly Lady Dunn, widow of Beaverbrook’s friend Sir James Dunn (died 1956)
RelationshipsNumerous, including: Jean Norton, society belle; Lily Ernst, ballet dancer; Venetia Stanley
ChildrenBy first marriage:
1. Janet ‘Bodie’ (1908-1988), married Ian Douglas Campbell then William Montagu then Thomas ‘Cappy’ Kidd
2. Maxwell ‘Max’ (1910-1985), fighter pilot, MP, businessman
3. Peter Rudyard (1912-1947), racing driver, army officer; died aged 35 after a yachting accident
Died1964 in Leatherhead, Surrey, aged 85 (seven months before Churchill); prostate cancer
BuriedCremated ashes are beneath a bust of Beaverbrook by Oscar Nemon in Newcastle Town Square, Miramichi, New Brunswick, Canada
ChartwellVisitors’ book: 12 recorded visits (1947-1956)
Other ClubYes
NicknameThe Beaver; Moccasin Mouth (due to his large mouth)
Height5’6” (1.67 m)

4. See also

Press magnates

  • Bracken, Brendan
  • Camrose, Lord (William Berry)
  • Rothermere, Lord (Harold Harmsworth)

Nazi appeasement

  • Baldwin, Stanley

Royal Air Force

  • Sassoon, Philip

Churchill controversies

  • Abdication crisis (see Edward VIII)
  • Financial affairs

5. Further reading

Beaverbrook

  • Aitken, Jonathan, Heroes and Contemporaries (Bloomsbury Academic, 2006)
  • Poitras, Jacques, Beaverbrook: A Shattered Legacy (Goose Lane Editions, 2007)
  • Richards, David Adams, Lord Beaverbrook (Penguin Canada, 2008)
  • Taylor, A.J.P., Beaverbrook (Simon & Schuster, 1972)
  • Williams, Charles, Max Beaverbrook: Not Quite a Gentleman (Biteback Publishing, 2019)

Beaverbrook and Churchill

UK press

  • Curran, James, and Jean Seaton, Power Without Responsibility: Press, Broadcasting and the Internet in Britain (Taylor & Francis, 2018)
  • Temple, Michael, The Rise and Fall of the British Press (Routledge, 2018)

Royal Air Force

  • Beaver, Paul, Spitfire People: The Men and Women Who Made the Spitfire the Aviation Icon (Evro Publishing Limited, 2016)
  • McKinstry, Leo, Hurricane: Victor of the Battle of Britain (John Murray Press, 2010)
  • Watson, Greig, ‘The “Whip-Round” That Won the War?’, BBC News, 2016 (Spitfire fundraising)

6. References

1. Rudyard Kipling, The Letters of Rudyard Kipling: 1911-19, ed. by Pinney, Thomas (University of Iowa Press, 1990), p. 418.

2. Kipling, p. 419.

3. Williams, Charles, Max Beaverbrook: Not Quite A Gentleman (Biteback Publishing, 2019), Prologue.

4. Leonie Jameson, ‘Sex and Power’, Independent, 1996.

5. Winston S. Churchill and Clementine Churchill, Speaking for Themselves: The Personal Letters of Winston and Clementine Churchill, ed. by Mary Soames (Black Swan, 1999), p. 300.

6. Churchill and Churchill, p. 464.

7. John Colville, The Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries: Volume Two: 1941-April 1955 (Sceptre, 1987), pp. 403–4.

8. Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: Volume 5: The Prophet of Truth, 1922-1939 (Houghton Mifflin, 1966), p. 360.

9. Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War: Volume 2: Their Finest Hour (Houghton Mifflin, 1949), p. 325.

10. Janet Aitken Kidd, The Beaverbrook Girl: An Autobiography (Collins, 1987), p. 30.

11. Jonathan Aitken, Heroes and Contemporaries (Bloomsbury Academic, 2006), p. 1.

12. Aitken, p. 13.