1879–1964 · Canadian-British newspaper publisher & wartime minister
William Maxwell Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook (25 May 1879 – 9 June 1964) was a Canadian-born press baron who owned the Daily Express and the Evening Standard and served in British government as Minister of Aircraft Production and Lord Privy Seal. He is the earliest famous name known to be attached to this joke — but attached is all it is. The 1936 column that first prints it opens “They’re telling this of Lord Beaverbrook,” which is a columnist repeating gossip, not a witness recording a remark. Beaverbrook has no better claim to the line than Russell does; he was simply first in a queue of interchangeable famous men.