- 1st Baron Beaverbrook.
Aitken was born on 25th May 1879, the fifth child of William Aitken, a dignified and devout Presbyterian preacher of Scottish extraction. He spent his early childhood in the frontier town of Newcastle, New Brunswick, Canada. Later in life he would recall the hardship of his early years. But this was an undoubted exaggeration: though by no means rich, the Aitken family were able to live comfortably in their Canadian provincial backwater.
In 1927, Beaverbrook visited the Museo del Prado in Madrid, Spain, with his daughter, Janet Aitken Kidd, who provides an account of their experience of seeing important masterworks by Titian, Bartolom? Murillo, Francisco de Goya, Diego Vel?zquez, El Greco, Peter Paul Rubens, and Rembrandt. In contrast to her own response, which she described as a "blinding revelation" of which "no words could express the excitement I felt," comparing it to "a child who discovers a bag of sweets," she notes that "on the surface he seemed unimpressed." However, she goes on to say that "It might have lit a spark in him too, for later on he spent much time and money establishing his own art gallery in Canada, fitting it with the best pictures he could acquire." It was perhaps a year later, in 1928, in reference to his loan of a William Orpen painting to Robert Borden, a former prime minister of Canada, that the embryonic idea of building an art gallery first surfaced, as he stated, "It is quite possible that I would want it [the painting] back ? in connection with some public building
Key dates:
25 May 1879 Birth in Maple, Ontario
1910 to 1916 Member of Parliament for Ashton-under-Lyne
1917 Granted Peerage of the United Kingdom: Baron Beaverbrook
1918 Minister of Information
1918 Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
1940-1941 Minister of Aircraft Production
1941-1942 Minister of Supply
1942 Minister of War Production
1943-1945 Lord Privy Seal
9 June 1964 Death at Cherkley Court, Leatherhead, Surrey
Family:
Married twice:
Gladys Henderson Drury (1906-1927)
Marcia Anastasia Christoforides, Lady Dunn(1963-1964)
3 children w/ Gladys Henderson Drury
1 Janet Gladys Aitken m. 11317172 'Cappy' Kidd Major Thomas Edward Dealtry Nickname: Cappy
2 Sir John William Maxwell Aitken
3 Peter Rudyard Aitken
The post war years, with their combination of rigorous socialism and imperial decline, were an unpleasant reality for the aging Beaverbrook. To the outside world his legend continued: his editors still waited nervously for the call and the unmistakable bark: 'What's news?' But there seemed more of a sense of nostalgia about his conversation and his work, and certainly an embittered isolation from political affairs.
He found solace in travel ? a tough yearly schedule that took him from Cherkley, to La Capponcina in the south of France, to the Bahamas, to New York, to Canada and back ? and, of course, in writing. He turned out well written, if somewhat indulgent, accounts of his heroes and his own contribution to the First World War.
After the War, Beaverbrook served as Chancellor of the University of New Brunswick and became the university's greatest benefactor, fulfilling the same role for the city of Fredericton and the Province as a whole. He provided additions to the University, scholarship funds, the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, the Beaverbrook Skating Rink, the Lord Beaverbrook Hotel, the Playhouse, and many other projects. He once estimated that he had given some $16 million to various causes in New Brunswick alone. He set up and chaired Foundations both in the UK and Canada to further his philanthropic aims. Lord Rosbery said of him: 'He used his wealth unostentatiously, sometimes not even letting his right hand know what his left hand did. He helped many in distress. I have known even his enemies, of whom he had many, to be helped by him anonymously when he heard that they were in an impoverished condition.'
In England, Beaverbrook lived at Cherkley Court, near Leatherhead, Surrey. He remained a widower until 1963 when he married Marcia Anastasia Christofrides, the widow of his friend Sir James Dunn.
By the early 1960s, however, it was clear that the curtain was falling. He was feted one last time at a dinner at the Dorchester for his eighty-fifth birthday in late May 1964. He died two weeks later on 9th June. He could show outwardly, at least, that there had been no decline.
His Coat of Arms is in the Canadian
Public Register of Arms, Flags and Badges
April 15, 2016 Vol VI p.606
https://www.genealogy.com/ftm/k/o/s/Janice-Fuller-MA/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-0331.html
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1879 - 1964 (85 years)
