Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook William Maxwell Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook, PC, ONB (25 May 1879 – 9 June 1964) was a 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 the Second World War he played a major role in mobilising industrial resources as Winston Churchill's minister of aircraft production. The young Max Aitken had
Baron Seaford Walden (this title was created by writ in 1597; see the Baron Howard de Walden for earlier history of this peerage). In 1845 he also succeeded his father as second Baron Seaford. Charles married in 1828 Lady Lucy Cavendish-Bentinck, daughter of William Bentinck, 4th Duke of Portland, and his wife Henrietta Scott. Through this marriage a substantial fortune came into the Ellis family, mainly based on property ownership in central London. His grandson, the eighth and fourth Baron, assumed in 1917 by Royal Licence his great-grandmother's surname of Scott in addition to that of Ellis. He was succeeded by his