John Russell, 1st Earl Russell

Lord John Russell links here, which might also refer to John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford.

For other people named John Russell, see John Russell (disambiguation).

The Right Honourable The Earl Russell KG GCMG PC
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
In office 29 October 1865 – 28 June 1866
Monarch	Victoria
Preceded by	The Viscount Palmerston
Succeeded by	The Earl of Derby
In office 30 June 1846 – 23 February 1852
Monarch	Victoria
Preceded by	Sir Robert Peel, Bt
Succeeded by	The Earl of Derby
Leader of the Opposition
In office 28 June 1866 – 3 December 1868
Monarch	Victoria
Prime Minister	The Earl of Derby Benjamin Disraeli
Preceded by	The Earl of Derby
Succeeded by	Benjamin Disraeli
In office 23 February 1852 – 19 December 1852
Monarch	Victoria
Prime Minister	The Earl of Derby
Preceded by	The Earl of Derby
Succeeded by	The Earl of Derby
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
In office 18 June 1859 – 3 November 1865
Prime Minister	Viscount Palmerston Himself
Preceded by	The Earl of Malmesbury
Succeeded by	The Earl of Clarendon
In office 28 December 1852 – 21 February 1853
Prime Minister	The Earl of Aberdeen
Preceded by	The Earl of Malmesbury
Succeeded by	The Earl of Clarendon
Lord President of the Council
In office 12 June 1854 – 8 February 1855
Prime Minister	The Earl of Aberdeen
Preceded by	Earl Granville
Succeeded by	Earl Granville
Home Secretary
In office 18 April 1835 – 30 August 1839
Preceded by	Henry Goulburn
Succeeded by	The Marquess of Normanby
Personal details
Born	(1792-08-18)18 August 1792 London, England
Died	28 May 1878(1878-05-28) (aged 85) Pembroke Lodge, Richmond Park, Surrey
Political party	Whig and Liberal
Spouse(s)	Adelaide(d.1838) Frances
Children	4
Alma mater	University of Edinburgh
Signature

John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, KG, GCMG, PC (18 August 1792 – 28 May 1878), known as Lord John Russell before 1861, was a leading Whig and Liberal politician who served twice as Prime Minister in the mid-19th century. Scion of one of the most powerful aristocratic families, his great achievements, says A. J. P. Taylor, were based on his indefatigable battles in Parliament over the years on behalf of the expansion of liberty; after each loss he tried again and again, until finally his efforts were largely successful. Russell was as the principal architect of the great Reform Act of 1832. As Prime Minister his luck ran out. He took much of the blame for the government's failures in dealing with the Irish famine. Taylor concludes that as prime minister, he:

was not a success. Indeed, his Government of 1846 to 1852 was the ruin of the Whig party: it never composed a Government again, and his Government of 1865 to 1866, which might be described as the first Liberal Government, was very nearly the ruin of the Liberal party also.

Background and education

Russell was born small and premature into the highest echelons of the British aristocracy. The Russell family had been one of the principal Whig dynasties in England since the 17th century, and were among the richest handful of aristocratic landowning families in the country, but as a younger son of the 6th Duke of Bedford he was not expected to inherit the family estates. As a younger son of a Duke, he bore the courtesy title "Lord John Russell", but as he was not a peer in his own right he was entitled to sit in the House of Commons until he was made an earl and moved to the House of Lords in 1861.

He was educated by tutors and attended the University of Edinburgh,1809 and 1812; he did not take a degree. Although oof small stature and often in poor health, he traveled widely in Britain and on the continent.

Public life

Russell entered the House of Commons as a Whig in 1813. In 1819, Russell embraced the cause of parliamentary reform, and led the more reformist wing of the Whigs throughout the 1820s. When the Whigs came to power in 1830 in Earl Grey's government, Russell entered the government as Paymaster of the Forces, and was soon elevated to the Cabinet. He was one of the principal leaders of the fight for the Reform Act 1832, earning the nickname Finality Jack from his complacency pronouncing the Act a final measure. In 1834, when the leader of the Commons, Lord Althorp, succeeded to the peerage as Earl Spencer, Russell became the leader of the Whigs in the Commons, a position he maintained for the rest of the decade, until the Whigs fell from power in 1841. In this position, Russell continued to lead the more reformist wing of the Whig party, calling, in particular, for religious freedom, and, as Home Secretary in the late 1830s, played a large role in democratizing the government of British cities (other than London). During his career in Parliament, Lord John Russell represented the City of London.

In 1845, as leader of the Opposition, Russell came out in favour of repeal of the Corn Laws, forcing Conservative Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel to follow him. When the Conservatives split the next year over this issue, the Whigs returned to power and Russell became Prime Minister. Russell's premiership was frustrated, because due to party disunity and infighting, he was unable to secure the success of many of the measures he was interested in passing.

Russell's first government coincided with the Great Irish Famine of the late 1840s, and saw conflict with his headstrong Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston, whose belligerence and support for continental revolution he found embarrassing. Palmerston was forced to resign when he recognized Napoleon III's coup of 2 December 1851, without royal approval.

The government also introduced a militia bill in the House of Commons, the vote on which was made a vote of confidence on the government. Palmerston succeeded in introducing an amendment to the militia bill which passed by eleven votes. Thus the majority vote in favour of the amendment to the militia bill caused the downfall of Russell's ministry, which occurred on 21 February 1852. Palmerston's amendment, thus, brought down the Russell government. This was Palmerston's famous "tit for tat with Johnny Russell" , a revenge for his dismissal by Russell as Foreign Minister.

In Opposition February 1852 until December of 1852

The downfall of the Russell government set the stage for another general election to Parliament to be held in July 1852. The July 1852 general election saw the election of 330 Conservatives and 324 Whigs to the Parliament. Neither of these figures represented a majority of the House of Commons because there were also minor parties and independents elected to the House of Commons and these minor parties and independents now held the balance of power in the new House of Commons. There were 38 members who were technically Conservatives, but were actually Peelites (followers of the late Robert Peel). The Peelites had deserted the Conservatives to vote for the repeal of the Corn Laws in June 1846. The Corn Laws had imposed a tariff on all cheap imported wheat and, thus, kept the price of wheat and the bread made from wheat high. This served the interests of landed aristocracy which was the main body of support for the Conservative Party. However, the high price of wheat and bread added greatly to the desperation of poor and hungry in England and Ireland.

The new Parliament included 113 "Free Traders" who were more radical than the Peelites. They felt that the tariffs on all imported consumer goods should be removed, not just the tariff on wheat or "corn." There were also 63 members of the "Irish Brigade," made up of Irish members interested in the Tenant Rights legislation for the protection of the tenant farmers in Ireland. None of these minor groups were interested in forming a government with the Conservatives because of the bitterness left over from the repeal of the Corn Laws. However, John Russell of the Whigs could not attract enough of the minor party members to form a government either. Other issues handled during the recent Russell government had alienated these three minor groups from the Whigs also. Thus, Queen Victoria asked the Earl of Derby to form a minority government.

Portrait of John Russell by Francis Grant, 1853

However the minority Conservative government under the Earl of Derby was short lived and in December 1852, the Derby minority fell in another "no confidence vote."

Foreign Minister in the Aberdeen Government

Russell, as the leader of the Whigs, then brought the Whigs into a new coalition government with the Peelite Conservatives, headed by the Peelite Lord Aberdeen. Aberdeen was the Prime Minister from the small Peelite section of coalition government. Feelings against Palmerston still ran so strong because of his letter to the French ambassador endorsing Louis Bonaparte's coup of 2 December 1852, that Palmerston could not possibly be appointed as Foreign Minister. Nonetheless, Palmerston had to be a part of the new Aberdeen government. Accordingly, on 28 December 1852, Palmerston was appointed Home Secretary. Russell continued to serve as Leader of the Whig Party in the House of Commons. As the leader of the largest party in the Aberdeen coalition government, Russell was needed in the new government. Accordingly, on 28 December 1852, Russell was appointed Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

In the eyes of many, including the Queen and Aberdeen, his jockeying for position against Palmerston was one of the causes of the inability of the administration to take a firm direction. It was a contest that Palmerston won; having entered the administration as the expected Whig heir, Russell left it having been overtaken by Palmerston.

The Crimean War

Main article: Crimean War

Together with Palmerston, Russell was instrumental in getting Britain to join France in thwarting the threat of Russia against the Ottoman Empire. They did so as a member of the Aberdeen government and against the wishes of the cautious, Russophile Earl of Aberdeen. The Ottoman Empire was in a state of decline and several nations in Europe sought acquire portions of its territory. Russia sought to assert its territorial claims to the Balkans. However, just as soon as Louis Bonaparte had completed his coup against the Second Republic of France and assumed the title Napoleon III, he sent an ambassador to the Ottoman Empire with instructions to obtain from the Ottomans, a guarantee that France was to be the exclusive "protector of Christian sites" in Jerusalem and the Holy Land. Louis Bonaparte was the nephew of Napoleon I, Emperor of France, and many British public officials - like Aberdeen - felt that Louis Bonaparte was merely seeking foreign adventure and aggrandizement and would sooner or later involve Britain in another series of wars like those wars against France and Napoleon from 1793 to 1815. France had long been seen as an opponent of British interests, and that perception had not changed since 1815. Accordingly, much of the British public sided with Russia in what was now being called the "Eastern Question." However, as time passed, the horrific losses of British soldiers, reported in detail in the prss, caused British public opinion to turn hostile. The British government was worried about the outcome of the rising tensions over Eastern Question. Accordingly, Aberdeen sent, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, a diplomat of considerable experience, to the Ottoman Empire, to oversee British interests.

When the Ottomans gave way to Louis Bonaparte's demands, Russia strongly objected and on 7 May 1853 one of Russia's leading statesmen, Prince Alexander Sergeyevich Menshikov, arrived in Turkey to demands an agreement favourable to Russia. During the Russo-Turkish War of 1768-1774, Russia had occupied the Turkish/Ottoman-controlled provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia (modern Romania). Under the Treaty of Kucuk Kaynarva signed in 1774, Russia had given these Danubian provinces back to the Ottoman Empire in exchange for Turkish recognition of Russia's exclusive right to "protect the Christian sites in Jerusalem and the Holy Land." Menshikov, using threats, obtained his agreement with The Porte.

The British elite saw a growing Russian threat not just to the Ottomans but also to Europe and even India. The balance of power was being upset. London cooperated with Paris. France sent the French ship-of-the-line to the Black Sea, in the spring of 1852, as a show of force against the Russians. The Ottomans reversed themselves and signed a treaty acknowledging the French and the Vatican as the official protectors of the Christian sites in the Holy Land. The Russians responded by sending its 4th and 5th Army Corps into Wallachia and Moldavia. It expected Austria and Prussia would support this move, but they were opposed and Russia had no allies. The Aberdeen government resisted active pursuit of the war. Lord Russell, frustrated by the Prime Minister's delays, resigned from the government on 21 February 1853. Aberdeen replaced Russell with Lord Clarendon.

The Ottoman Empire declared war on Russia on 23 October 1853. The Russian fleet defeated the Turkish fleet at the Battle of Sinope on 30 November 1853. After Russia had ignored the Anglo-French ultimatum, both France and Britain declared war on Russia on 28 March 1854. The war was fought chiefly in the Black Sea, with the great Russian base of Sebastopol in Crimea as the main target. In September 1854, British, French and Turkish troops landed on the Crimean Peninsula and set siege to Sevastopol. After a campaign marked by gross mismanagement and very high rates of death from disease, Sevastopol finally fell. Public opinion had turned hostile.

A motion in Parliament to investigate the mismanagement became a vote of confidence in the Aberdeen government and in the Secretary for War. Accordingly, when the Robuck motion passed, Aberdeen treated the vote as a vote of "no confidence" on his government and resigned. Upon the resignation of the Earl of Aberdeen, Lord Palmerston was asked formed a new government. John Russell was sent to Vienna to negotiate (accepting the Colonial Office) but sacrificed himself to protect negotiation confidentiality, and temporarily retired from politics in 1855, focusing on writing.

Foreign Minister in the Palmerston Government 1859-1865

In 1859, following another short-lived Conservative government, Palmerston and Russell made up their differences, and Russell consented to serve as Foreign Secretary in a new Palmerston cabinet - usually considered the first true Liberal Cabinet. This period was a particularly eventful one in the world outside Britain, seeing the Unification of Italy, the American Civil War, and the 1864 war over Schleswig-Holstein between Denmark and the German states. Russell arranged the London Conference of 1864, but failed to establish peace in the war. His tenure of the Foreign Office was noteworthy for the famous dispatch in which he defended Italian independence: "Her Majesty's Government will turn their eyes rather to the gratifying prospect of a people building up the edifice of their liberties, and consolidating the work of their independence, amid the sympathies and good wishes of Europe" (27 October 1860).

The House of Lords 1860

Russell was elevated to the peerage as Earl Russell, of Kingston Russell in the County of Dorset, and Viscount Amberley, of Amberley in the County of Gloucester and of Ardsalla in the County of Meath, and in 1861. As a peer in his own right, he sat in the House of Lords for the remainder of his career.

Prime Minister Again 1865-1866

When Palmerston suddenly died in late 1865, Russell again became Prime Minister. His second premiership was short and frustrating, and Russell failed in his great ambition of expanding the franchise - a task that would be left to his Conservative successors, Derby and Benjamin Disraeli. In 1866, party disunity again brought down his government, and Russell went into permanent retirement.

Marriages and children

Adelaide Lister, Russell's first wife (d. 1838)

On 11 April 1835, Russell married Adelaide, Lady Ribblesdale, the eldest daughter of Thomas Lister Esq. and the widow of Thomas Lister, 2nd Baron Ribblesdale, who had died in 1832. Her death in 1838 cut the marriage short after three years. They had two daughters, Lady Georgiana Adelaide Russell (1836–1922), who married Archibald Peel and had a daughter, Grace (1878–1973); and Lady Victoria Russell (1838–1880), who married the Rev. Henry Montagu Villiers, and left many descendants.

On 20 July 1841 Russell married secondly Lady Frances Anna-Maria Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, daughter of Gilbert Elliot, 2nd Earl of Minto. Their children were John Russell, Viscount Amberley (1842–1876), George Gilbert William Russell (1848–1933); Francis Albert Rollo Russell (1849–1914) and Mary Augusta Russell (1853–1933). They lived at Pembroke Lodge, Richmond Park

After the death in 1876 of his eldest son, Lord Amberley, Russell and his second wife thereafter brought up his son's children, including Bertrand Russell, who recalled Russell in his later life as "a kindly old man in a wheelchair".

Legacy

He was succeeded as Liberal leader by former Peelite William Gladstone, and was thus the last true Whig to serve as Prime Minister. Generally taken as the model for Anthony Trollope's Mr Mildmay, aspects of his character may also have suggested those of Plantagenet Palliser. An ideal statesman, said Trollope, should have "unblemished, unextinguishable, inexhaustible love of country...But he should also be scrupulous, and, as being scrupulous, weak."

The 1832 Reform Act and the democratisation of the government of British cities are partly attributed to his efforts.

He also worked for emancipation, leading the attack on the Test and Corporation acts, which were repealed in 1828, as well as towards legislation limiting working hours in factories in the 1847 Factory Act, and the Public Health Act of 1848.

His government's approach to dealing with the Great Irish Famine is now widely condemned as counterproductive, ill-informed and disastrous. Russell himself was sympathetic to the plight of the Irish poor, and that many of his relief proposals were blocked by his cabinet or by the British Parliament.

Queen Victoria's attitude to Russell had been coloured by his role in the Aberdeen administration, In visiting Windsor Castle to resign, Aberdeen had told the Queen: "Nothing could have been better, he said than the feeling of the members towards each other. Had it not been for the incessant attempts of Ld John Russell to keep up party differences, it must be acknowledged that the experiment of a coalition had succeeded admirably", which attitude she shared. The Queen continued to criticise Russell for his behaviour for the rest of his life, and on his death in 1878 her journal records that he was: "A man of much talent, who leaves a name behind him, kind, & good, with a great knowledge of the constitution, who behaved very well, on many trying occasions; but he was impulsive, very selfish (as shown on many occasions, especially during Ld Aberdeen's administration) vain, & often reckless & imprudent".

Russell's governments

• First Russell ministry (July 1846–February 1852)
• Second Russell ministry (October 1865–June 1866)

Literature

In 1819 Lord John Russell published his book "Life of Lord Russell" about his famous ancestor. In 1822 Russell published a historical drama "Don Carlos : or, Persecution. A tragedy, in five acts". Between 1853 and 1856, he edited the Memoirs, Journal and Correspondence of Thomas Moore, which was published by Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans over 8 volumes.

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens was dedicated to Lord John Russell "In remembrance of many public services and private kindnesses."

Ancestry

Family of John Russell, 1st Earl Russell

16. His Grace Wriothesley Russell, second Duke of Bedford 8. His Grace John Russell, fourth Duke of Bedford 17. Elizabeth Howland 4. Francis Russell, Marquess of Tavistock 18. Rt. Hon. John Leveson-Gower, first Earl of Gower 9. Lady Gertrude Leveson-Gower 19. Lady Evelyn Pierrepont 2. His Grace John Russell, sixth Duke of Bedford 20. Rt. Hon. Arnold Joost van Keppel, first Earl of Albemarle 10. Rt. Hon. William Anne Keppel, second Earl of Albemarle 21. Gertrude de Quirina van der Duyn 5. Lady Elizabeth Keppel 22. His Grace Charles Lennox, first Duke of Richmond 11. Lady Anne Lennox 23. Anne Brudenell 1. Rt. Hon. John Russell, first Earl Russell 24. Rear Admiral Rt. Hon. George Byng, first Viscount Torrington 12. Maj.-Gen. Rt. Hon. George Byng, third Viscount Torrington 25. Margaret Master 6. Rt. Hon. George Byne, fourth Viscount Torrington 26. Lyonel Daniel 13. Elizabeth Daniel 27. Martha Master 3. Hon. Georgiana Elizabeth Byng 28. Rt. Hon. Charles Boyle, fourth Earl of Orrery 14. Rt. Hon. John Boyle, fifth Earl of Cork 29. Lady Elizabeth Cecil 7. Lady Lucy Boyle 30. John Hamilton 15. Margaret Hamilton 31. Lucy Dopping

See also

• Internationalization of the Danube River
• Confederate States of America: International diplomacy

References

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Wood, James, ed. (1907). The Nuttall Encyclopædia. London and New York: Frederick Warne. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

Further reading

• Chamberlain, Muriel E. Lord Aberdeen: A Political Biography (1983)
• Halevy, Elie. Victorian Years (History of the English People in the Nineteeth Century, Volume 4) (1961) political narrative
• Krein, David F. "War And Reform: Russell, Palmerston and the Struggle for Power in the Aberdeen Cabinet, 1853-54," Maryland Historian (1976) 7#2 pp 67-84.
• Partridge, M. S. "The Russell Cabinet and National Defence, 1846-1852.," History (1987) 72# 235, pp 231-250.* Prest, John M. Lord John Russell (Macmillan, 1972), scholarly biography
• Prest, John. "Russell, John, first Earl Russell (1792–1878)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004; online ed, 2009 accessed 31 Aug 2014, short scholarly summary
• Reid, Stuart Johnson. Lord John Russell (1895) online; free at Kindle
• Saunders, Robert. Lord John Russell and Parliamentary Reform, 1848-67," English Historical Review (2005) 120#489 pp 1289-1315. in JSTOR
• Scherer, Paul. Lord John Russell: A Biography (1999) 427pp, scholarly biography
• Taylor, A. J. P. Essays in English History (1976) pp 67=72
• Tilby A. Wyatt. Lord John Russell,: A study in civil and religious liberty (1931)
• Woodward, Llewellyn. The Age of Reform, 1815-1870 (Oxford History of England) (1938; 2nd ed. 1962), political narratice

Historiography

• Beales, Derek. "Peel, Russell and Reform," Historical Journal (1974) 17#4 pp 873-882 in JSTOR
• Loades, David Michael, ed. Reader's guide to British history (2003) 2:1147-49

External links

• Lord John Russell 1st Earl Russell, short biography from the 10 Downing Street website
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Lord John Russell
• Lord John Russell 1792-1878 biography from the Liberal Democrat History Group
• Lord John Russell by Stuart J. Reid
• More about Earl Russell on the Downing Street website
• Pembroke Lodge (principal residence and museum)
• Portraits of John Russell, 1st Earl Russell at the National Portrait Gallery, London