William Maxwell "Max" Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook, PC (May 25, 1879 – June 9, 1964) was a Canadian – British business tycoon and politician.

Early career in Canada
In 1910 Aitken acquired many of the small regional cement plants in Eastern Canada, and amalgamated them into Canada Cement. Canada was booming at the time so he had the monopoly on the material. There were irregularities in the stock transfer, and Aitken quickly sold his shares, making a huge fortune and some cheated investors. Aitken then left for England. Some say had he stayed in Canada he would have been charged with securities fraud.
In 1912, Nesbitt left Aitken's employ to form Nesbitt, Thomson and Co. stock brokerage. Aitken appointed employee Izaak Walton Killam as the new President of Royal Securities and, firmly ensconced in England, sold the Canadian securities company to Killam in 1919.
On January 29, 1906 in Halifax, Max Aitken married Gladys Henderson Drury, daughter of Major-General Charles William Drury CBE. They had three children before her death in 1927.
Children with Gladys Henderson Drury:

Janet Gladys Aitken (1908-1988)
John William Maxwell Aitken (1910-1985)
Peter Rudyard Aitken (1912-1947) To England
Over time, he turned the dull newspaper into a glittering and witty journal, filled with an array of dramatic photo layouts and in 1918, he founded the Sunday Express. By 1934, daily circulation reached 1,708,000, generating huge profits for Aitken whose wealth was already such that he never took a salary. Following World War II, the Daily Express became the largest selling newspaper in the world, by far, with a circulation of 3,706,000. He would become known by some historians as the first baron of "Fleet Street" and as one of the most powerful men in Britain whose newspapers could make or break almost anyone. In the 1930s, while personally attempting to dissuade King Edward VIII from continuing his potentially ruinous affair with American divorcee, Wallis Simpson, Lord Beaverbrook's newspapers published every tidbit of the affair, especially the heir's apparent cosiness with Adolf Hitler.

First baron of Fleet Street
During World War II, from his home Cherkley Court, Leatherhead in Surrey he joined the British cabinet as Minister of Information and in 1940, Winston Churchill, the new British Prime Minister, would appoint him as Minister of Aircraft Production and later Minister of Supply. Under Aitken, fighter and bomber production increased so much so that Churchill declared: "His personal force and genius made this Aitken's finest hour".

World War II
After the war, Lord 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 would provide additions to the University, scholarship funds, the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, the Beaverbrook Skating Rink, the Lord Beaverbrook Hotel (profits donated to charity), The Playhouse, Louise Manny's early folklore work, and numerous other projects.
In 1957, a bronze statue of Lord Beaverbrook was erected at the centre of Officers' Square in Fredericton, New Brunswick, paid for by money raised by children throughout the province. A bust of him by Oscar Nemon stands in the park in the town square of Newcastle, New Brunswick not far from where he sold newspapers as a young boy. His ashes are in a plinth of the bust.
Beaverbrook was both admired and despised in England, sometimes at the same time: in his 1956 autobiography, David Low quotes H.G. Wells as saying of Beaverbrook: "If ever Max ever gets to Heaven, he won't last long. He will be chucked out for trying to pull off a merger between Heaven and Hell after having secured a controlling interest in key subsidiary companies in both places, of course."
In England he lived at Cherkley Court, near Leatherhead, Surrey. Beaverbrook remained a widower for many years until 1963 when he married Marcia Anastasia Christoforides (1910-1994), the widow of his friend Sir James Dunn. Lord Beaverbrook died in Surrey in 1964. The Beaverbrook Foundation continues his philanthropic interests.

The benefactor
Lord Beaverbrook and his wife Lady Beaverbrook have left a considerable legacy to his adopted province of New Brunswick and the United Kingdom, among others. His legacy includes the following buildings:

University of New Brunswick

• Aitken House
  Aitken University Centre
  Lady Beaverbrook Gymnasium
  Lady Beaverbrook Residence
  Beaverbrook House (UNBSJ E-Commerce Centre)
  City of Fredericton, New Brunswick
  
  
  
  • Lady Beaverbrook Arena (formerly operated by the University of New Brunswick)
    The Beaverbrook Art Gallery, including world-renowned art collection (N.B.'s provincial gallery)
    The Fredericton Playhouse
    Lord Beaverbrook Hotel
    City of Miramichi, New Brunswick
    
    
    
    • Lord Beaverbrook Arena (LBA)
      Beaverbrook Kin Centre
      Lord Beaverbrook statue in Queen Elizabeth Park in Miramichi
      City of Campbellton, New Brunswick
      
      
      
      • Lord Beaverbrook School
        City of Saint John, New Brunswick
        
        
        
        • Lord Beaverbrook Rink
          City of Calgary, Alberta
          
          
          
          • Lord Beaverbrook High School
            McGill University
            
            
            
            • The Beaverbrook Chair in Ethics, Media and Communications Legacy
              
              Lord Beaverbrook has a lasting place in British popular culture as one of the famous English people taunted by name in Bjørge Lillelien's legendary commentary immediately after Norway defeated England in a FIFA World Cup qualifier in 1981.
              Lord Beaverbrook employed novelist Evelyn Waugh in London and abroad. Waugh repaid his employer by lampooning him in Scoop, as Lord Copper, and in both Put Out More Flags and Vile Bodies, as Lord Monomark.
              Lord Beaverbrook was the basis of the inspiration for the play and subsequent of Edward, My Son which shows the protagonist in a less than positive light See also
              
              Canada in Flanders (1916)
              Politicians and the Press (1925)
              Politicians and the War Vol 1 (1928)
              Politicians and the War Vol 2 (1932)
              Men and Power (1956)
              Friends: Sixty years of Intimate personal relations with Richard Bedford Bennett (1959)
              Courage (1961)
              The decline and fall of Lloyd George (1962)
              The divine propagandist (1962)
              My Early Life (1962)
              Success (1962)
              The Abdication of Edward VIII (1966)