Sir William Watson Rutherford, 1st Baronet (1853 – 3 December 1927) was a Conservative party politician in the United Kingdom who was Member of Parliament and Lord Mayor of Liverpool.
He was educated at the Merchant Taylor′s school, Great Crosby, and was articled in 1870 to the solicitor John Hughes (who would later serve as mayor of the city in 1883).
[1] He was elected to the City Council for Netherfield Ward in 1895, and was for a year chairman of the Tramways Committee overseeing the construction of electric trams in Liverpool.
He was elected Lord Mayor of Liverpool in November 1902,[2] but resigned in early January 1903 to be the candidate in a by-election for parliament.
[3] After he was elected to parliament on 20 January 1903,[6] he was also re-elected as mayor on 4 February 1903 and served the remainder of the term until November 1903.