Brendan
Bracken was born
in Kilmallock in Ireland in 1901. Educated
at a Jesuit College in Mungret he was sent to Australia where he worked
on a sheep station. He later found employment in a newspaper's advertising
department before returning to Dublin in
1919.
Bracken
moved to London where he became friends
with Winston Churchill and
helped him in his unsuccessful attempt to return to the House
of Commons in 1923. He
found work with Eyre & Spottiswoode and in 1925 became a director
of the publishing company. He edited the Financial
News, The Banker and
The Practitioner before
being promoted to managing director of the Economist
in 1928.
A
member of the Conservative Party,
Bracken was elected to the House of Commons
in 1929. A strong opponent of appeasement,
Churchill appointed him as his parliamentary private
secretary soon after the outbreak of the Second
World War.
Bracken
replaced Duff
Cooper as
Minister of Information on 21st July, 1941. He held the post until
becoming First Lord of the Admiralty in 1945.
Bracken lost his Cabinet post after the 1945
General Election. Brendan
Bracken,
who was created a viscount in 1952, died of throat cancer on 8th August,
1958.
(1)
Henry
(Chips) Channon,
diary entry (3rd
February, 1943)
The 1922 Committee was addressed by Brendan Bracken, that
kind-hearted, garrulous, red-headed gargoyle, whom I have always considered
a fraud, au fond: he is an indifferent Minister, promising all and
doing little - inoperative in fact, and prejudiced. He made a bid
for popularity with the old-fashioned Tories today.
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