Sir Richard Antony Pilkington, KBE, MC (10 May 1908 – 9 December 1976) was a British Conservative Party politician and a soldier in the British Army.^[1]

Richard Pilkington was born in St Helens to the Chairman of the Pilkington glass works, Arthur Pilkington, and Marjorie Cope, daughter of the painter Arthur Stockdale Cope.^[2] He was educated at Charterhouse and Christ Church, Oxford. He worked and travelled in North America from 1928 until 1930 when he joined the Coldstream Guards as an officer,^[3] serving in Sudan and Egypt.^[4]

In 1935 he resigned his commission to enter politics and was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for Widnes in Lancashire.^[5] He served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Oliver Stanley.^[6] On the outbreak of the Second World War he rejoined the Army and travelled to France with the British Expeditionary Force.^[7] He was awarded the Military Cross after returning with one of the last groups from Dunkirk in 1940.^[8]

He left the Army again in 1942 and became a Civil Lord of the Admiralty, leading naval missions to India, Ceylon and Burma.^[9] He lost his seat to Christopher Shawcross in 1945 and lost again in 1950. In 1951 he won election as Member of Parliament for Poole in Dorset,^[10] a seat he held until his retirement from politics in 1964 after a car accident and the onset of Parkinson's disease. He died from the disease in 1976 at the age of 68.^[11]

Richard Pilkington was also known for his collection of cars, all red, a passion shared by his nephew Sir Antony Pilkington.^[12]