Frances Russell, Countess Russell

Frances ("Fanny") Anna Maria Russell, Countess Russell (née Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound; 1815–1898), was the second wife of two-time Prime Minister of the United Kingdom John Russell, 1st Earl Russell. Between 1841 and 1861 she was known as Lady John Russell.

The Right Honourable The Countess Russell
Spouse of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
In role 30 June 1846 – 21 February 1852
Preceded by	Lady Julia Peel
Succeeded by	Emma Caroline Smith-Stanley, Countess of Derby
In role 29 October 1865 – 26 June 1866
Preceded by	Emily Temple, Viscountess Palmerston
Succeeded by	Emma Caroline Smith-Stanley, Countess of Derby
Personal details
Born	Lady Frances Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound 15 November 1815 Minto, Roxburghshire
Died	17 January 1898 (aged 82) Richmond-upon-Thames
Resting place	Chenies, Buckinghamshire
Spouse(s)	John Russell, 1st Earl Russell ​ ​ (m. 1841; died 1878)​
Children	4, including John Russell, Viscount Amberley and Rollo Russell 6 stepchildren
Mother	Mary Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, Countess Minto (née Brydone)
Father	Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 2nd Earl of Minto

Life

Frances was born in Minto, Roxburghshire, the second daughter of the Earl and Countess of Minto. She spent her early years at the family home of Minto House before moving to Berlin in 1832 when her father was made Minister to Prussia. In September 1835 her father was made First Lord of the Admiralty in the government of Lord Melbourne, which saw the family move to London. In 1840, at the age of 24, Frances received an offer of marriage from her father's cabinet colleague, Lord John Russell, who had been widowed two years previously. She initially rejected Lord John's proposal, before reconsidering and accepting. They were married on 20 July 1841 in the drawing room at Minto House.[1]

Upon marriage Frances became stepmother to Lord John's two daughters from his first marriage, Georgiana and Victoria, as well as to his four stepchildren (the orphaned children of his first wife Adelaide and her first husband). They had four children of their own:

• John Russell, later Viscount Amberley (10 December 1842 – 9 January 1876)
• George Gilbert William Russell (14 April 1848 – 27 January 1933)
• Francis Albert Rollo Russell, known as Rollo (11 July 1849 – 30 March 1914)
• Mary Agatha Russell, known as Agatha (1853 – 23 April 1933)

In 1847, during Lord John's first term as Prime Minister, the Russells were granted the use of Pembroke Lodge, Richmond-upon-Thames by Queen Victoria. It would remain the Russells family home until Frances died in 1898.[2]

In 1861 Lord John Russell was elevated to the peerage as Earl Russell and Frances henceforth became known as Countess Russell.

In 1876 the Russells eldest son, Viscount Amberley, died from bronchitis, leaving two orphaned sons (their mother, Katharine Russell, Viscountess Amberley having died in 1874). They were John ("Frank") Russell (aged 10), who became 2nd Earl Russell, upon the death of his grandfather in 1878, and the future philosopher Bertrand Russell (aged 3). In his will, Amberley had named Douglas Spalding and T. J. Cobden-Sanderson as Frank and Bertrand's guardians, not wishing his children to be raised as Christians,[3] but Lord and Lady Russell successfully contested the stipulation and assumed full guardianship of their grandsons.[4][3] The deeply pious Lady Russell, notwithstanding her undoubted disapproval of some of its content, made sure that her son's book An Analysis of Religious Belief (which took a critical view of Christianity and other religions) was published a month after his death.[5] Two years later Earl Russell died, leaving Lady Russell as Frank and Bertrand's sole guardian. In later life Bertrand Russell recalled his grandmother as: "the most important person to me throughout my childhood. She was a Scotch Presbyterian, Liberal in politics and religion...but extremely strict in matters of morality." [6]

Countess Russell died at Pembroke Lodge on 17 January 1898 at the age of 82, having survived her husband by almost twenty years. She was buried alongside her husband in the Russell family chapel at St. Michael's Church, Chenies.[7]

Character

Lady Russell was a woman of strong religious and political convictions. She was raised as a Presbyterian before becoming a Unitarian in later life.[8][6] The daughter of a Whig peer, she took an interest in politics from an early age. She was a supporter of liberal causes such as Italian Unification and Irish Home Rule and supported the North in the American Civil War out of an abhorrence of slavery.[9]

Bertrand Russell, recalling his grandmother in later life, wrote that she was completely unworldly and "despised those who thought anything of worldly honours." According to Russell his grandmother lived austerely, disliked wine, hated tobacco, ate only the plainest food and "was always on the verge of becoming a vegetarian."[10] While he found her strict Victorian morality excessive, Russell recalled Lady Russell as an affectionate grandmother and admired what he described as "her fearlessness, her public spirit, her contempt for convention, and her indifference to the opinion of the majority."[11]

Frances was fluent in French, German and Italian. She was well-versed in classic English and European literature but, according to Bertrand Russell, she had no interest in modern European literature.[12] From the age of fifteen she kept a diary, which she discontinued on the death of her husband forty-eight years later. After her death portions of the diary were edited and published by her daughter Agatha.

Honours

The Countess Russell

A ship The Countess Russell was named in Lady Russell's honour in 1861. It ran aground and was lost off the coast of Queensland on 13 August 1873.

References

1. McCarthy, Desmond and Russell, Agatha (1910). Lady John Russell: A Memoir. pp. 1–47.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
2. Fletcher Jones, Pamela (1972). Richmond Park: Portrait of a Royal Playground. Phillimore & Co Ltd. p. 41. ISBN 0-8503-3497-7.
3. Griffin, Nicholas (1992). The selected letters of Bertrand Russell. Allen Lane. ISBN 0713990236.
4. Monk, Ray (1996). Bertrand Russell: the spirit of solitude. J. Cape. ISBN 0224030264.
5. Andersson, Stefan (1992). In quest of certainty: Bertrand Russell's search for certainty in religion and mathematics up to The principles of mathematics (1903). Almqvist & Wiksell.
6. Russell, Bertrand (2000) [1967]. The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell: 1872–1914. New York: Routledge. p. 15.
7. McCarthy, Desmond and Russell, Agatha (1910). Lady John Russell: A Memoir. p. 290.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
8. McCarthy, Desmond and Russell, Agatha (1910). Lady John Russell: A Memoir. p. 9.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
9. McCarthy, Desmond and Russell, Agatha (1910). Lady John Russell: A Memoir. pp. 189, 267297.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
10. Russell, Bertrand (2000) [1967]. The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell: 1872–1914. New York: Routledge. p. 17.
11. Russell, Bertrand (2000) [1967]. The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell: 1872–1914. New York: Routledge. p. 17.
12. Russell, Bertrand (2000) [1967]. The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell: 1872–1914. New York: Routledge. p. 15.