William
Maxwell Aitken, the son of a Presbyterian
minister, was born in Maple, Ontario, in 1879. He became a stockbroker
and by 1910 had made a fortune from Canadian cement mills.
Aitken moved to Britain and the followed year became the Conservative
member for Ashton-under-Lyne. In the House
of Commons Aitken became private secretary to the Colonial Secretary,
Andrew Bonar Law. Aitken's visits to the
Western Front during the First World War resulted
in his book Canada
at Flanders
(1917). In 1918 David Lloyd George granted
Aitken the title, Lord
Beaverbrook and appointed him as Minister of Information in his wartime
coalition government.
During the war Beaverbrook acquired a controlling interest in the
Daily
Express.
He told his readers that his newspaper was "the prophet of equal
opportunity and the unrelenting opponent of that system of preferred
chances which gives one man an unfair opportunity over a more competent
rival."
Beaverbrook,
who developed
ideas pioneered by Alfred Harmsworth
and the Daily Mail,
turned the
Daily
Express
into the most
widely read newspaper in the world. Beaverbrook also founded the Sunday
Express
(1921) and in 1929 purchased the Evening
Standard.
He also wrote several books including Politicians
and the Press
(1925) and Politicians
and the War
(1928).
In the Second World War,
Winston Churchill recruited Beaverbrook
into his Cabinet where he served as Minister for Aircraft Production
(1940-41), Minister of Supply (1941-2), Minister of War Production
(1942), and Lord Privy Seal (1943-45). William
Maxwell Aitken,
Lord Beaverbrook, died in 1964.
(1)
Lord Beaverbrook first approached David Low
to work for the Evening Standard
in 1926. Although Beaverbrook offered to double his salary he refused.
In 1929 Beaverbrook tried again to capture Britain's leading cartoonist.
He
fixed me with a steady calculating eye and I put on my best Simple
Simon look. The proposition was that I should leave The Star and
draw cartoons for the Evening Standard at double my salary,
whatever it was. Flabbergasted, I made refusing noises. "What
do you want?" he asked. He was persistent. To close the subject
I said I wished to take the advice of my friends H. G. Wells and Arnold
Bennett.
Negotiations ended when I called on Lord Beaverbrook one morning at
noon, finding him sitting up in bed, a plaintive figure like Camille,
reading the Bible. He had promised me four half-pages a week, but
I wanted precise guarantees about presentation. "Dammit, Low,"
said Beaverbrook. "Do you want to edit the paper, too."
The Evening Standard advertised my coming lavishly. No one
took seriously the announcements that I was to express independent
views. that was a novel idea, except for an occasional series of signed
articles by some big name. Free and regular expression by the staff
cartoonist was unheard of and incredible.
(2)
In 1943 Michael Foot resigned as editor of
the Evening
Standard.
He explained his decision in a letter to Lord Beaverbrook.
Your
views and mine are bound to become more and more irreconcilable. As
far is this socialist business is concerned, my views are unshakable.
For me it is the Klondyke or bust, and at the moment I am doubtful
whether I am going the right way to Klondyke. There does not seem
much sense in my continuing to write leaders for a newspaper group
whose opinions I do not share and some of whose opinions I strongly
dissent from. I know you never ask me to write views which I disagree.
But as this works out is is good business neither for you nor for
me.
(3)
David Low, Autobiography (1956)
I began to introduce Beaverbrook into my cartoons in the Star.
He was not a ready-made subject for caricature. Large head, boyish
face, full cheeks, wide forehead, unruly hair, small nose with peculiar
curve, wide grin belied by sharp light eye, slight small figure, short
neck, high shoulders, neat extremities, hairy hands, undistinguished
dark blue suit. The whole thing lay in the wide grin belied by the
sharp eye.
Beaverbrook dislocated the pattern, ruptured the continuity, pushed
traditions and institutions around. His loyalty was placed where and
when, in his arbitrary judgment, at any given time, it was deserved.
He certainly did not conform to anything. He was nobody but himself.
Two simple ideas underlaid the success story in Canadian business:
mergers and the exploitation of new values therefrom. His subsequent
story in British politics had run on the same lines. His main political
operations had been all mergers, achieved or attempted, of people,
parties and/or policies.
"If ever Max ever gets to Heaven, he won't last long," said
H. G. Wells to me one night as we left Stornoway House after Beaverbrook
had been holding forth on John Knox. "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."
(4)
A. J. P. Taylor, English History 1914-1945
(1965)
Beaverbrook fought to control war transport. He won. He fought to
control labour. He lost. His improvising zest broke on the rock of
Ernest Bevin. Beaverbrook had a fatal weakness. He had no political
following. He commanded no wide popularity in parliament or in the
country. He was in his own words, a court favourite, who owed his
position to Churchill's friendship. The protecting hand was now withdrawn.
Beaverbrook's defeat was cloaked by the excuse of physical illness.
No doubt more lay behind. Churchill could not go into battle against
Bevin. Besides he did not want to. Beaverbrook was as enthusiastic
for Soviet Russia and the Second Front as any factory worker. Churchill
resisted these enthusiasms. This brought Beaverbrook down. He left
the government. Oliver Lyttelton became minister of production in
his place. Lyttelton belonged to the modern type of managing director
who cooperated with trade union leaders. He made no claim to control
labour. He did not at first even claim to control priorities and allocations,
though he gradually gained this by his control of supplies from America.
(5)
Herbert
Morrison, An
Autobiography (1960)
At the time of the Battle of Britain, Beaverbrook did
a great job at M.A.P. (Minister of Aircraft Production), especially
by the rapid repair of damaged aircraft. He made a big contribution
to winning that battle.
Beaverbrook, a great individualist,
is to my mind something even of an anarchist; but he is also a great
journalist. He makes newspapers of character - like them or not. I
recall when I was at the Home Office the Express newspapers caused
us no little trouble by mischievously advocating that the blackout
was futile and should be ended. The lifting of the blackout would
be a dangerous thing which the War Cabinet would never for a moment
have permitted at that stage. The population - who every night called
out to somebody, "put
that light out" - would not have stood for it. Morale would have
been hurt. The aim, I suspect, was to get the papers talked about
without doing any harm to anyone.
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