Express in 1918, and bought the London Evening Standard in 1923. He served in
David Lloyd George's World War I cabinet and Winston Churchill's World War II
cabinet.
Having made a fortune in cement in Canada, he entered British politics, first in
support of Andrew Bonar Law, then of Lloyd George, becoming minister of
information 1918–19. In World War II he was minister of supply 1941. He received a
knighthood in 1911 and was made a baronet in 1916.
Beaverbrook was born in Maple, Ontario, the son of an immigrant Presbyterian
minister. After studying law at the University of New Brunswick he became a life
insurance salesman, going on to deal in bonds, and then made a fortune out of a
controversial merger of three companies into the Canadian Cement Company. He
moved to England in 1910 and, with the encouragement of British politician Andrew
Bonar Law (who was also born in Canada), was elected as Conservative member of
Parliament for Ashton-under-Lyne in the UK general election of December that year.
After the outbreak of World War I he represented the Canadian government as an
observer (with Canadian troops serving on the Western front) and established the
Canadian War Records Office. He chronicled these events in his memoir, Canada in
Flanders (1916–18).
By 1916 he had returned to London and accepted the chairmanship of the War Office
Committee for Propaganda. Beaverbrook played a supportive role in Lloyd George's
bid for political power which brought down the Asquith government, although he did
not get a cabinet post until 1918 when he served as Chancellor of the Duchy of
Lancaster and minister of information.
Meanwhile, he had bought a controlling interest (for £17,500) in the ailing Daily
Express in 1916. After resigning his government office, he founded the Sunday
Express and then bought the London Evening Standard. The Daily Express moved
into profit in 1922 and rose from a circulation of 277,000 in 1918 to two million in
1936, and four million in 1949.
Between the wars he used his newspapers to campaign for empire free trade, in
opposition to the then prime minister, Stanley Baldwin. During World War II he
rejoined the British cabinet as minister of aircraft production (1940–41) and minister
of supply (1941), before becoming British lend-lease administrator in the USA in
1942 and then Lord Privy Seal from 1943 to 1945.
Beaverbrook resigned from the Conservative Party in 1949 and his newspapers
became politically independent. He continued to campaign for free trade and later
opposed British entry to the European Economic Community.
His other memoirs include Politicians and the Press (1925), Men and Power: 1917–
18 (1936), and The Decline and Fall of Lloyd George (1963).
Beverley Baxter
British politician
'Beaverbrook is so pleased to be in the Government that he is like the town tart who
has finally married the Mayor!'
[On Lord Beaverbrook, Quoted in Harold Nicolson, Diary, June 1940]