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).
Other books
A Cowboy in Disguise by Victoria Ashe
Stepbrother With Benefits 11 by Mia Clark
One Degree of Separation by Karin Kallmaker
Messenger: A Walt Longmire Story by Craig Johnson
ASingleKnightNook by Lexxie Couper
The Black Stallion and the Girl by Walter Farley
Merrily Watkins 11 - The Secrets of Pain by Rickman, Phil
The Last Light of the Sun by Guy Gavriel Kay
Palace of Lies by Margaret Peterson Haddix
Sir Bentley and Holbrook Court by Chuck Black