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Brendan BrackenBrendan Bracken (1901 - 1958) was an Irish-born British Conservative cabinet minister. Bracken's early life was subject to great confusion much of which was contributed by himself. On his orders his private papers were burnt just a day after his death. Several potential biographers gave up in despair at the limited material available though there have been some works, based as much on interviews with those who knew him as on his papers. A common rumour was that he was Winston Churchill's illegitimate son, a rumour that neither actively sought to deny. When Bracken arrived in Britain in 1920 he claimed to be Australian, having lost his parents in a bush fire. It seems most likely that this story was told to hide his Irish roots at a time of civil war in his home country and great hostility in Britain. He had a career as a publisher and newpaper editor before being elected to the House of Commons in 1929. A good friend of Winston Churchill, Bracken served as Minister for Information from 1941 to 1945 after a short stint as Churchill's Parliamentary Private Secretary. In 1945 Bracken was briefly made First Lord of the Admiralty but lost the post in the fall of the Churchill government to Clement Atlee's Labour Party. He himself lost his North Paddington seat but returned as MP for Bournemouth in a November 1945 by-election. He was elevated to the House of Lords by Churchill, as a Viscount in 1952. He died of throat cancer, aged fifty-seven, six years later. Bracken, Brendan Bracken, Brendan Bracken, Brendan Bracken, Brendan
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