A Whig, Littleton was much less of a political animal than his father Edward John Littleton (1791-1863), MP for Staffordshire 1812-1832, South Staffordshire 1832-1835 and 1st baron Hatherton, with whom he had an uneasy relationship. An important political figure in Staffordshire with good connections among Whig parliamentary leaders, Hatherton was ambitious for his only son. Littleton was rumoured as a possible Liberal candidate for South Staffordshire in 1837 and at the 1841 general election could probably have been elected for Walsall had he been willing to support the total repeal of the corn laws.
Littleton had little enthusiasm for a political career, but it offered an escape from his overbearing father, as he wrote shortly after his election:
I do not much fancy I shall like my Parliamentary life – I am bodily active & mentally idle, & fear I shall never overcome the latter defect.
However, though the sacrifice is great, … I still believe I have done the right thing as regards the future. I dread the dependence of living at Teddesley, …
I cannot overcome my repugnance to my father’s manner when he is not in the most perfect good humour – I dread talking to him on any subject, as one never knows what bitter, or biting thing he may say. In fact, I am not myself in his society, & like a snail, shut myself up in a shell.
Edward Richard Littleton Journal, 18 Nov. 1847, Staffs. RO, D260/M/F/7/5/26/100.
A Whig supporter of Lord John Russell’s government, Littleton endorsed further Catholic relief, 8 Dec. 1847, but divided against the introduction of a Jewish disabilities bill ‘& was one of very few “Liberals” who did so’.
On the militia bill, which precipitated the fall of the Whig ministry, 20 Feb. 1852, Littleton, generally a Liberal loyalist, ‘took Ld Palmerston’s view of the subject, but being unwilling to vote against Ld John [Russell], did not vote at all, & consequently was not in the House when Ld John expressed his determination to resign’.
Littleton returned to the House the following year after being elected unopposed for South Staffordshire. Although he was too ill to attend the nomination, 15 Aug. 1853, he promised to give ‘independent support’ to Aberdeen’s coalition, and singled out Gladstone’s recent budget for special praise.
In early 1857 Littleton became gravely ill with ‘Rheumatic Gout’, which caused ‘some formidable swellings, with large nodules in the calves of his legs’.
Littleton was well enough to nominate one of the Liberal candidates in South Staffordshire at the 1859 general election, but thereafter was increasingly anxious about the financial problems he would inherit from his father.