Sir Richard Durning Holt, 1st Baronet

Sir Richard Durning Holt, Baronet, JP (13 November 1868 – 22 March 1941) was a British Liberal Party politician and businessman with interests in shipping. Background and education Holt was born on 13 November 1868 at Edge Lane, in West Derby, Liverpool, Lancashire. He was one of five sons of Robert Durning Holt, a cotton broker and later Lord Mayor of Liverpool, by his wife Lawrencina Potter, daughter of Richard Potter and sister of Beatrice Webb. He was educated at Winchester and New College, Oxford. Political career After some persuasion from Herbert Gladstone, Holt stood as Liberal candidate at Liverpool West Derby in 1903, when he lost to William Rutherford. He stood and lost again there in 1906. He was elected at a by-election in 1907 as a Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) for Hexham but his classical liberal ideas were increasingly out of fashion in the Liberal Party; he opposed David Lloyd George's social welfare legislation as government interference. However, he accepted the minimum wage in 1900 and a public works programme in 1929 after at first opposing it. He became part of the "Holt Cave" of Liberal MPs who opposed Lloyd George's 1914 budget. He was Liberal candidate for Cumberland North in 1929.