In its early days, Chatham was bustling, energetic, growing and confident. Chatham attracted the Maritime lawyer Richard Bedford Bennett, later to be prime minister of Canada. In 1896 when Chatham held its first elections for Town Council, the young Bennett was elected by one vote. He was then employed with the law firm established by Lemuel Tweedie, a former Lieutenant-Governor of New Brunswick. Bennett's campaign manager was a 17-year-old "articling" student by the name of Max Aitken. Aitken grew up in Newcastle and would later become Lord Beaverbrook. He was appointed the Minister for Aircraft Production in Winston Churchill's World War II cabinet.