FRAMED ORIGINAL WW II TYPED “MINUTE” TO THE P.M. INITIAL-SIGNED “B” BY LORD BEAVERBROOK
As Minister of Aircraft Production
Undated (Circa-1940)
7 x 9 inches (Framed: 17 x 22 inches)
Item Number: 212941
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Description
Extraordinarily rare and personal internal wartime “Minute” to Winston Churchill as the new P.M., from his new Minister of Aircraft Production, Lord Beaverbrook, undated, typed on a pale blue sheet of paper typed-headed: Ministry of Aircraft Production, Millbank S.W.I:
THE PRIME MINISTER:
You are the Captain of our Team, and the Minister of Aircraft Production salutes you.
But this Ministry can only provide aircraft if the War Cabinet does not lack confidence in it.
And Sir Archibald Sinclair, Mr. Purvis, Sir Kingsley Wood, Mr. Greenwood, and Sir Hugh Dowding are symptoms of a lack of confidence.
They all want to do their own work.
But I will do it for them.
And better.
B. [in ink, in Beaverbrook’s hand]
This “Minute” came to us among papers from the estate of Winston Churchill’s wartime private secretary John Peck, who apparently hung on to it. No mention of it appears in the Churchill Archives or the official Churchill biography. It remains in very good condition, with faint staple marks in each upper corner and a small file-punch. The presence of typos suggests that it was, in fact, typed by Max Beaverbrook himself. It is here museum matted in blue silk with the historic photograph of Churchill and Beaverbrook onboard HMS Price of Wales during the Atlantic Conference with President Roosevelt in August 1941, and framed in a stunning gilded frame (17 x 22 inches).
Winston Churchill offered his old friend (and nemesis), Lord Beaverbrook, the position of Minister of Aircraft Production on the day he himself became Prime Minister, May 10, 1940. Despite the many enemies that Beaverbrook had made in the Conservative Party, his appointment became official on May 14. Beaverbrook held the post for what he later called, “twenty-one months of high adventure, the like of which has never been known,” as he built up almost by himself a ministry that had never before existed. Churchill simply referred to it as “Beaverbrooks’ Hour.”