Richard Acland

Sir Richard Thomas Dyke Acland, 15th Baronet (26 November 1906 – 24 November 1990) was one of the founding members of the British Common Wealth Party in 1942, having previously been a Liberal Member of Parliament (MP). He joined the Labour Party in 1945 and was later a Labour MP. He was one of the founders of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). First years Richard Thomas Dyke Acland was born on 26 November 1906 at Broadclyst, Devon, the eldest son of Sir Francis Dyke Acland (1874-1939), 14th Baronet, a Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) and of his first wife Eleanor Acland, née Cropper (1878-1933), a Liberal politician, suffragist, and novelist. He had two brothers and one sister; his brother Geoffrey Acland also became a Liberal politician. He was educated at Rugby School and at Balliol College, Oxford, before qualifying as a barrister (admitted at the Inner Temple in 1930). He briefly served in peacetime as a lieutenant in the 96th (Royal Devon Yeomanry) Field Brigade, RA. Acland stood unsuccessfully for Parliament as the Liberal candidate for Torquay at the 1929 general election. He was elected Liberal MP for Barnstaple at the 1935 election, having first contested the seat in the 1931 general election. He was a junior whip for the Liberals. He helped launch the Popular Front in December 1936. His politics changed course subsequently, as seen in the various political pamphlets he wrote.