Beaverbrook

BEAVERBROOK 1st Baron (William Maxwell Aitken) d1964. Canadian-British newspaper publisher and backstage politician who was an influential figure in British media and politics of the first half of the 20th century. His base of power was the largest circulation newspaper in the world, the Daily Express which appealed to the conservative working class with intensely patriotic news and editorials. During WW2 he played a major role in mobilising industrial resources as Winston Churchill's Minister of Aircraft Production. Post-war, the now Lord Beaverbrook concentrated on his business interests. He built the Daily Express into the most successful mass-circulation newspaper in the world, with sales of 2.25 million copies a day across Britain. He used it to pursue personal campaigns, most notably for tariff reform and for the British Empire to become a free trade bloc. He spent his later life running his newspapers, which by then included the Evening Standard and the Sunday Express. He died in Surrey aged 85 on June 9th 1964