Richard Legh, 3rd Baron Newton

Legh was the son of the British diplomat and Conservative politician Thomas Wodehouse Legh, 2nd Baron Newton PC, DL^[3] His grandfather, William Legh, 1st Baron Newton DL, was a British Conservative politician who was raised to the peerage as Baron Newton, of Newton-in-Makerfield in the County Palatine of Lancaster.^[4]

Newton was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford. He was an attaché for the British Embassy at Istanbul then Vienna. He served during the First World War with the Lancashire Hussars. Later he was Honorary Colonel of the 7th Battalion, The Cheshire Regiment. During the Second World War he served at the War Office.

In 1914, he married Helen Meysey-Thompson (d. 1958), 2nd daughter of the 1st Baron Knaresborough: they had three sons, including Peter who succeeded to his father's title. His wife died in 1958.