 In 1890 he married Ruth Sutcliffe, the daughter of a Lancashire Justice of the Peace.In 1923 he succeeded the sitting Liberal MP, Sir Henry Norman.According to The Times Newspaper, Duckworth was not associated with the internal feuding which had plagued the Liberals since the split between H H Asquith and David Lloyd George in December 1916 and this helped unify the two wings of the party there in the run up to the 1923 general election.