Constituency : Oldham 1899-1900, Dewsbury 1902-18, Swansea West 1924-9, St Ives 1929-37 ( from 1932 National Liberal )
In 1899 there was a double by-election at Oldham caused by the death of one Tory and resignation of the other at the same time. The Liberals won both seats. Walter came in second, ahead of Winston Churchill for the Conservatives.
Walter was the son of the shipping magnate of the same name ( later an MP himself ). He was educated at Cambridge. He contested the Gravesend by-election in 1898.
In 1900 Churchill got ahead of Walter in the poll and unseated him.
In 1902 Walter got elected in a by-election in the safe seat of Dewsbury. A moderate Liberal, Walter was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board by Campbell-Bannerman. In 1907 he was promoted to Financial Secretary to the Treasury. Asquith brought him into the Cabinet as President of the Board of Education. In 1911 he switched to the Board of Agriculture.
Walter had pacifist inclinations and favoured an understanding with Germany. He opposed Churchill's high naval estimates. Nevertheless he did not resign on the outbreak of war and when John Burns did , it was Walter who succeeded him as President of the Board of Trade. He helped direct industry towards the war effort and kept his place in Asquith's coalition Cabinet in 1915. Walter threatened to resign over conscription but did not carry out his threat.
Walter had previously enjoyed good relations with Lloyd George and had helped to extricate him from the Marconi Scandal. However he resigned along with Asquith in 1916 and became an implacable enemy of the Welshman.
In 1918 Walter came third behind a Coalition Conservative and a Labour candidate in Dewsbury.
Walter spent the next six years out of Parliament , failing to win the Edinburgh North by-election in 1920. In 1924 he won Swansea West against the trend. In 1929 he switched to the seat of St Ives, conveniently vacated by his wife Hilda after a by-election win the year before.
In the 1931 crisis Walter initially sided with Herbert Samuel in resistance to protectionism. When the National Government was returned to power he resumed his old post at the Board of Trade as a counterweight to Neville Chamberlain as Chancellor of the Exchequer. When a year later, Samuel and his followers quit the government over tariffs , Walter decided to stay on. From this point , he effectively became a National Liberal although he remained President of the National Liberal Federation until 1934. He presided over the introduction of tariffs on a number of goods which led to him becoming regarded as an arch-traitor in Liberal circles.
Walter concluded the Roca-Runciman Treaty with Argentina over beef imports.
In 1937 Walter left the government when Neville Chamberlain only offered him the sinecure post of Lord Privy Seal. He was created Viscount Runciman , sitting in the Lords with a higher title than that held by his living father, a highly unusual situation. His father died a few months later so Walter inherited the inferior barony as well.
In 1938 Walter was appointed to head a diplomatic mission to Czechoslovakia to try and settle the Sudeten question. The German party there were under Hitler's control and ordered not to agree to any mediation so the mission was a failure. Despite this ,Walter's report was unduly favourable to their cause and helped lead to the Munich Agreement , after which Chamberlain brought him back into the government as Lord President of the Council. He resigned on the outbreak of World War Two.
He died in 1949 aged 78.
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