Encyclopedia
John Russell, 1st Earl Russell,
KG,
GCMG,
PC , known as
Lord John Russell before 1861, was a
British Whig and Liberal politician who served twice as
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century.
Background and education
Russell was born 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 in line to inherit the family estates.
He was educated at
Westminster School and then at the
University of Edinburgh — one of only three university-educated British Prime Ministers to have attended somewhere other than
Oxford or
Cambridge .
Politics
Russell entered parliament 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 John from his complacently 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 .
In 1845, as leader of the Opposition, Russell came out in favour of repeal of the Corn Laws, forcing
Tory Prime Minister
Sir Robert Peel to follow him. When the Tories split the next year over this issue, the Whigs returned to power and Russell became
Prime Minister. Russell's premiership was frustrating, and, due to party disunity and his own ineffectual leadership, he was unable to get many of the measures he was interested in passed.
Russell's first government coincided with the
Irish Potato Famine of the late 1840s. Russell's government also saw conflict with his headstrong Foreign Secretary,
Lord Palmerston, whose belligerence and support for continental revolution he found embarrassing. When, without royal approval, Palmerston recognized
Napoleon III's coup of December 2, 1851, Palmerston was forced to resign, and the ministry soon collapsed.
After a short-lived minority Tory government under the
Earl of Derby, Russell brought the Whigs into a new coalition government with the Peelite Tories, headed by the Peelite
Lord Aberdeen. Russell served again as Leader of the House of Commons, and together with Palmerston was instrumental in getting Britain involved in the
Crimean War, against the wishes of the cautious, Russophile Aberdeen. Incompetence in the early stages of the war, however, led to the collapse of the government, and Palmerston formed a new government. Although Russell was initially included, he did not get on well with his former subordinate, and temporarily retired from politics in 1855, focusing on writing.
In 1859, following another short-lived Tory 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's handling of these crises was not particularly noteworthy, and he was always overshadowed by his more eminent chief. In particular, his attempts to attain British mediation in the American war, which were shot down by the cautious Palmerston, did not improve his position. Russell was elevated to the peerage as
Viscount Amberley, of Amberley in the County of Gloucester and of Ardsalla in the County of Meath, and
Earl Russell, of Kingston Russell in the County of Dorset, in 1861.
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 Tory successors, Derby and
Benjamin Disraeli. In 1866, party disunity again brought down his government, and Russell went into permanent retirement.
Legacy
He was succeeded as Liberal leader by former Peelite
William Ewart Gladstone, and was thus the last true Whig to serve as Prime Minister.
Among Russell's descendants is the renowned philosopher
Bertrand Russell, his grandson.
Russell, New Zealand - That colony's first capital
Lord John Russell's first government
Changes
- July, 1847 - Henry Labouchere succeeds Lord Clarendon as President of the Board of Trade. Labouchere's successor as Chief Secretary for Ireland is not in the cabinet. T.B. Macaulay leaves the cabinet. His successor as Paymaster-General is not in the Cabinet.
- January, 1849 - Sir Francis Baring succeeds Lord Auckland as First Lord of the Admiralty
- March, 1850 - Lord Carlisle succeeds Lord Campbell as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. He remains First Commissioner of Woods and Forests
- July, 1850 - Lord Truro succeeds Lord Cottenham as Lord Chancellor. Lord Seymour succeeds Lord Carlisle as First Commissioner of Woods and Forests. Lord Carlisle remains Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
- October 1851 - Fox Maule, the Secretary at War, and Lord Granville, the Paymaster-General, enter the Cabinet
- December, 1851 - Lord Granville succeeds Lord Palmerston as Foreign Secretary. Granville's successor as Paymaster-General is not in the Cabinet
- February, 1852 - Fox Maule succeeds J.C. Hobhouse as Preisdent of the Board of Control. Maule's successor as Secretary at War is not in the Cabinet.
Lord Russell's second government
Changes
- February, 1866 - Lord de Grey succeeds Sir Charles Wood as Secretary for India. Lord Hartington succeeds de Grey as Secretary for War.
See also
Principal residence and museum -
External link
- biography from the Liberal Democrat History Group
