Richard Durning Holt
Sir Richard Durning Holt, Baronet, JP 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 for Hexhambut 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.
In January 1935 he was created a baronet for his services to shipping. In June 1936 he was elected to serve on the Liberal Party Council.
Holt had initially opposed Britain becoming involved in what became the First World War, writing on 2 August 1914 that he found it "impossible to believe that a Liberal Government can be guilty of the crime of dragging us into this conflict in which we are no way interested". However, by 9 August, he had changed his mind after Germany's attack on Belgium, whose neutrality both Germany and Britain had guaranteed. He later expressed dissatisfaction with voluntary fundraising in aid of the war effort, believing that it encouraged many people to become reliant on the work of others.