John Russell, Lord Amberley, was born in 1842 and died in 1876. He lived in the shadow of his father, the famous statesman Earl Russell. Nevertheless, he was a progressive Liberal M.P. from 1865 to 1868, when support for birth control destroyed any chance of continuing in public life. He then turned to writing, most notably his Analysis of Religious Belief. Lacking a strong constitution, and suffering from bronchitis, he died from heartbreak and strain after the deaths of his wife and daughter in 1874 from diphtheria.
Person(s) in Photograph: John Russell, Lord Amberley
Description: John Russell
Archive Box Number: RA *950: 1, 3
Archive Box Number: 1,3
Description: This is a portrait of John Russell.
Bertrand Russell's Mother:
Lady Amberley (1842-1874), daughter of Lord Stanley of Alderley, married Viscount Amberley in 1864, giving birth to three children between 1865 and 1872, of whom Bertrand was the last. Like her husband she supported birth control, religious freedom and even free love. She died when Bertrand was too young to remember her.
Person(s) in Photograph: Katharine Russell, Lady Amberley
Description: This is a photograph of Lady Amberley (Bertrand Russell's mother). Russell described his mother as "vigorous, lively, witty, serious, original, and fearless".
Archive Box Number: 1,4
Description: This portrait of Lady Amberley "playing" croquet, endorsed "Kate Stanley", was given to Amberley in July 1863.
Person(s) in Photograph: Katharine Russell, Lady Amberley; Bertrand Russell (?).
Description: This is a photograph of Lady Amberley holding a young child who is perhaps Bertrand Russell.
Person(s) in Photograph: Katharine Russell, Lady Amberley; unidentified male.
Description: Lady Amberley and an unidentified man at her home, Ravenscroft, Trelleck, in Monmouthshire.
Person(s) in Photograph: Dr. Wagner, Willy, Lady Russell, Agatha, Rollo, Amberley, Georgy, Lord Russell
Description: The Russell family in 1863 showing Dr. Wagner, a tutor, Bertrand Russell's uncle, William Russell, Lady Russell, Rollo Russell (another uncle), Georgy (Lord John's daughter by his first marriage), Lord Amberley, Lord John Russell, Agatha Russell (Bertrand Russell's aunt). Willy went permanently insane in 1874 and Agatha had a nervous breakdown on the eve of her wedding day and never married.
Archive Box Number: 1,5
Person(s) in Photograph: Lady John Russell, Frances Anna Maria Elliot Russell.
Description: Lady John Russell, Bertrand's grandmother, exerted a powerful influence on the development of her grandson after he went to live at Pembroke Lodge. She tried to groom him to become a future prime minister.
Archive Box Number: 1,10
Person(s) in Photograph: Lord John Russell
Description: Bertrand remembered his grandfather, Lord John Russell, as an invalid who spent his days reading Hansard. He was twice Prime Minister and earlier gained fame as the chief architect of the Great Reform Bill of 1832.
Archive Box Number: 1,12
Description: Lord John Russell in his prime as a politician.
Archive Box Number: 1,14
Person(s) in Photograph: Lady Stanley of Alderley
Description: The formidable Lady Stanley was described by her grandson as "an eighteenth century type, rationalistic and unimaginative, keen on enlightenment, and contemptuous of Victorian goody-goody priggery".
Archive Box Number: 1,13
Person(s) in Photograph: "Frank", John Francis Stanley Russell, Rachel Russell
Description: Russell's elder brother, John Francis Stanley Russell (1865-1931) and his sister Rachel (1868-1874). In June 1874 Rachel (aged 6 years) and Lady Amberley contracted diphtheria and within days were dead.
Archive Box Number: 1,9
Person(s) in Photograph: "Frank", John Francis Stanley Russell
Description: Frank Russell, "the wicked earl", was tried for bigamy in 1901 at the Bar of the House of Lords. When he came under the care of his grandparents he was already quite uncontrollable, as later demonstrated by his marital and financial turbulence. But he was public-spirited as the first Peer to formally join the Labour Party, as a supporter of Bertrand's anti-war stand during the Great War, and was a member of the Labour Government, 1929-31.
Archive Box Number: 2,14
Description: Russell's childhood home Pembroke Lodge, in Richmond Park, had been granted by Queen Victoria to Lord John Russell and his wife in 1847 for their life-time occupation as a reward for his services to the nation.
Archive Box Number: 8,25
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