Walter James, 1st Baron Northbourne

File:Thomas Lawrence - Walter Charles James, age 13, in 1829 (detail) - 1958.301 - Fogg Museum (cropped).jpg

Walter Charles James, 1st Baron Northbourne (3 June 1816 – 4 February 1893), known as Sir Walter James, 2nd Baronet, from 1829 to 1884, was a British Member of Parliament.

James was the son of John James, Minister Plenipotentiary to the Netherlands, and grandson of Sir Walter James, 1st Baronet. He succeeded his grandfather in the baronetcy in 1829, and in 1837 he was elected to the House of Commons for Kingston upon Hull as a Tory, a seat he held until 1847. He acquired Betteshanger House (now Northbourne Park School) in Kent in 1850 and commissioned George Devey to oversee extensions and alterations to the house.

He served as High Sheriff of Kent for 1855.{{London Gazette|issue=21660|page=470|date=9 February 1855}} He was a friend of William Ewart Gladstone, and in 1884, during Gladstone's second term as prime minister, he was raised to the peerage as Baron Northbourne, of Betteshanger in the County of Kent.{{London Gazette |issue=25411 |date=4 November 1884 |page=4753}} From at least 1882 James was the lord of the manor of Langdon.Kelly's Directory of Kent 1882, pp. 306, 307.

Lord Northbourne married Sarah Caroline Ellison, daughter of Cuthbert Ellison, in 1841. She died in 1890. Lord Northbourne survived her by three years and died in February 1893, aged 76. He was succeeded in his titles by his son Walter.

File:Thomas Lawrence - Walter Charles James and Charles Stewart Hardinge - 1958.301 - Fogg Museum.jpg age 6, and Walter Charles James age 13 in 1829, painted by Thomas Lawrence]]