Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook They had three children before her death on 1 December 1927. Their son Max Aitken Jr. became a fighter pilot with 601 Squadron, rising to Wing Commander with 16 victories in World War II. 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. Beaverbrook was rarely a faithful husband, and even in old age was often accused of treating women with disrespect. In Britain he established the then-married Jean Norton as his mistress at Cherkley. Aitken left Norton for a Jewish ballet dancer named Lily
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