Lord Beaverbrook (15 page)
CHRONOLOGY
SOURCES
| 1879 | William Maxwell Aitken is born in Maple, Ontario, on May 25. |
| 1880 | The Aitken family moves to Newcastle, New Brunswick. |
| 1892 | The first of Max’s newspapers is published. |
| 1896 | Aitken meets Mr. Tweedie and goes to work at his law firm; meets R.B. Bennett and James Dunn; and runs Bennett’s first campaign. |
| 1897 | Max enrols in Saint John Law School, but doesn’t complete studies. |
| 1898 | Aitken follows Bennett to Alberta. |
| 1899–1900 | Max sells bonds door-to-door. |
| 1902 | John Fitzwilliam Stairs founds Royal Securities Corp. and hires Aitken. |
| 1904 | Stairs dies and Max Aitken becomes general manager of Royal Securities Corp. |
| 1906 | Gladys Drury and Max Aitken are married. |
| 1907 | Max moves to Montreal and acquires a seat on the stock exchange. |
| 1908 | Janet Gladys Aitken, Max’s first child, is born. |
| 1910 | Aitken becomes embroiled in Canada Cement scandal, moves to London, and wins seat for Unionist (Conservative) Party in Ashton-under-Lyne. Max’s second child, John William Maxwell Aitken, is born. |
| 1911 | Max Aitken is knighted. Bonar Law becomes leader of the Opposition. |
| 1912 | Peter Rudyard Aitken, Max’s third child, is born. |
| 1914 | At the outbreak of the First World War, Aitken becomes Canada’s “eye-witness” at the Front. |
| 1915 | Aitken becomes a representative of the Canadian government with the Canadian Expeditionary Force and creates the Canadian War Records Office. |
| 1916 | Max writes Canada in Flanders ; buys the controlling interest in the Daily Express ; and is made a baronet. David Lloyd George becomes British prime minister. |
| 1917 | Aitken is raised to the peerage and takes the title Lord Beaverbrook. |
| 1918 | In February, Aitken joins the British cabinet and is made minister of information in charge of propaganda; in October, he resigns from office. |
| 1920s | Aitken builds a chain of newspapers, including the Daily Express , the Evening Standard , and the Sunday Express. |
| 1922 | Bonar Law becomes prime minister of Britain. |
| 1923 | Bonar Law dies; Stanley Baldwin becomes prime minister. |
| 1927 | In December, Max’s wife, Gladys, dies. |
| 1929 | Beaverbrook champions the Empire Free Trade movement (and through the 1930s). |
| 1936 | Max tries to keep Edward VIII in power. |
| 1937 | Neville Chamberlain becomes prime minister of Britain. |
| 1939 | In September, the Second World War begins. |
| 1940 | Winston Churchill becomes prime minister of Britain. Churchill names Beaverbrook minister of aircraft production and a member of the wartime cabinet. |
| 1941 | Aitken is named overall minister of production. |
| 1942 | Max resigns his office in a huff, is sent as an envoy to Washington (as lend-lease administrator), and pushes for a second front in the war. |
| 1943 | Aitken takes up agriculture. |
| 1943–45 | Beaverbrook is made Lord Privy Seal and an adviser to cabinet. |
| 1945 | Max’s mistress, Jean Norton, dies. The Second World War ends. Clement Attlee becomes prime minister of Britain. |
| 1947 | Beaverbrook is named chancellor of the University of New Brunswick. |
| 1949 | Aitken resigns from the Conservative Party. |
| 1951 | Churchill becomes prime minister once again. |
| 1963 | Beaverbrook marries Lady Christofer Dunn, widow of Sir James Dunn. |
| 1964, JUNE 9 | Max Aitken dies |
Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook, Max.
My Early Life
(Fredericton: Brunswick Press, 1965).
Bullock, Alan.
Hitler: A Study in Tyranny
(London: Penguin, 1990).
Churchill, Randolph.
Lord Derby, “King of Lancashire”: The Official Life of Edward, Seventeenth Earl of Derby, 1865–1948
(London: Heinemann, 1959).
Howard, Peter.
Beaverbrook: A Study of Max the Unknown
(London: Hutchinson, 1964).
Jenkins, Roy.
Churchill: A Biography
(New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2001).
Manchester, William.
The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Alone, 1932–1940
(Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown, 1988).
Marchildon, Gregory P.
Profits and Politics: Beaverbrook and the Gilded Age of Canadian Finance
. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996).
Taylor, A.J.P.
Beaverbrook
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972).
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