Sir Max Aitken, 2nd Baronet the birth of the Cowes Torquay Offshore Powerboat Race, with the aim of improving the breed of sea-going fast cruisers and safety at sea. The Cowes Torquay will celebrate in 2010 the 50th year since Aitken founded it. Aitken, with the sponsorship of his newspaper the Daily Express, helped to found the London International Boat Show in 1954 at the Empire Hall, Olympia. Aitken married three times: He succeeded his father as Baron Beaverbrook on the latter's death on 9 June 1964, but disclaimed the title three days later on 12 June, stating that "there shall only be one Lord
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