WM business owner and Liberal politician from Lancaster. His father, James Helme, was the senior partner in an oilcloth, baize and leathercloth business at Halton Mills. Norval Helme was educated at the Royal Grammar School, Lancaster. A member of Lancaster council, becoming mayor in 1896, he was President of the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce and represented the city on the founding of Lancashire County Council in 1889. He represented Lancaster in Parliament from 1900 but was defeated in 1918 when he was not given the coalition coupon. Knighted in 1912, he died on 6 March 1932.
Skerton W.M.Church, Lancaster, by the architect Samuel Wright of Morecambe, was built in 1911 by N.W.& R.N. Helme as a memorial to their father.