Sir Max Aitken, 2nd Baronet Sir Max Aitken, 2nd Baronet Sir John William Maxwell Aitken, 2nd Baronet, (15 February 1910 – 30 April 1985), briefly 2nd Baron Beaverbrook in 1964, was a British fighter pilot and flying ace of the Second World War, a Conservative politician, and press baron. He was the son of Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook. Aitken was born in Montreal on 15 February 1910 to Max Aitken (later Lord Beaverbrook). He was educated at Westminster School and Pembroke College, Cambridge. A talented sportsman, he was a University blue at football and a scratch golfer. A keen flyer, he spent some time
Charles Aitken the Whitechapel Art Gallery from 1901 to 1911, and became Keeper at the Tate Gallery in 1911. In 1917 he changed his title from "Keeper" to "Director". Sir John Rothenstein described Aitken as "an ordinary man: his intelligence was relatively pedestrian, his powers of self-expression scarcely adequate". However, Rothenstein considered that the job "brought out qualities that made him a great director: clarity and firmness of purpose". When one of the greatest collections of the works of William Blake came on the open market, Aitken, who had no purchasing budget, put together a consortium to save it. Because of the