Sir John Lawson Walton KC (4 August 1852 – 19 January 1908) was a British barrister and Liberal politician.

[5] He was appointed Queen's Counsel on 4 February 1890,[6] swearing the oath in the company of two other illustrious Liberals R B Haldane and H H Asquith.

[3] His early career was boosted by his close association with the Methodist Church in the West Riding of Yorkshire[2] but he soon built up a large practice in London as well as on the circuit.

[2] Burns was returned as MP for Battersea in 1892 as an Independent Labour Party candidate but soon after changed his description to Liberal-Labour and sat as a Lib-Lab until he stepped down from Parliamentary life at the 1918 general election.

Walton won the ensuing contest on 22 September 1892 beating his Conservative opponent R J N Neville by 948 votes (12 percent of the poll).

They were in favour of a more positive attitude towards the development of the British Empire and Imperialism, ending the primacy of the party's commitment to Irish Home Rule.

He was a witness before the Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Discipline of 1904 when he spoke in favour of more effective procedure against clergy charged with breaking the law.

It was reported that attendance in the House through two all-night sittings when in charge of the Criminal Court Appeal Bill proved the last straw,[20] and in January 1908 Walton developed a chill which developed into double pneumonia; he died on Saturday 18 January 1908, aged 55, at his house in Great Cumberland Place, London.

[3][21] He was buried at Ellesborough, near Wendover in Buckinghamshire on 22 January, and a memorial service was held at the Temple Church the following day.

[22] A number of letters written by Walton to Herbert Gladstone are deposited in the British Library manuscript collections.