John Francis Stanley Russell, 2nd Earl Russell, known as Frank Russell (12 August 18653 March 1931), was a British nobleman, barrister and politician, the elder brother of the philosopher Bertrand Russell, and the grandson of John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, who was twice prime minister of Britain. The elder son of Viscount and Viscountess Amberley, Russell became well known for his marital woes, and was convicted of bigamy before the House of Lords in 1901, the last peer to be convicted of an offence in a trial by the Lords before that privilege of peerage was abolished in 1948.
Russell was raised by his paternal grandparents after his unconventional parents both died young. He was discontented living with his grandparents, but enjoyed four happy years at Winchester College. His academic education came to a sudden end when he was sent down from Balliol College, Oxford, probably because authorities there had suspicions concerning the nature of his relationship with the future poet Lionel Johnson, and he always bitterly resented his treatment by Oxford. After spending time in the United States, he married the first of his three wives, Mabel Edith Scott, in 1890. The two quickly separated, and the next several years saw acrimonious litigation in the courts, but the restrictive English laws of the time meant there was no divorce. Russell was elected to the London County Council in 1895, and served there until 1904. In 1899, he accompanied the woman who would become his second wife, Mollie Somerville, to Nevada, where each obtained a divorce, and they married, then returned to Britain to live as husband and wife. Russell was the first celebrity to get a Nevada divorce, but it was not recognised by English law, and in June 1901, he was arrested for bigamy. He pleaded guilty before the House of Lords, and served three months in Holloway, afterwards marrying Mollie according to English law. He gained a free pardon for the offence in 1911.
Beginning in 1902 Russell campaigned for divorce law reform, using his hereditary seat as a peer in the House of Lords to advocate this, but had little success. He was also a campaigner for motorists' rights, often taking briefs to defend them after being called to the bar in 1905, and at one time had the registration number plate A 1. His second marriage ended after he fell in love with the novelist Elizabeth von Arnim in 1914, and he married von Arnim in 1916. The couple soon separated, though they did not divorce, and Elizabeth caricatured him in her novel Vera, to his anger. Frank Russell aided his brother Bertrand when he was imprisoned for anti-war activities in 1918. Increasingly aligned with the Labour Party, Russell was given junior office in the second MacDonald government in 1929, but his ministerial career was cut short by his death in 1931. Despite his achievements, Frank Russell is obscure compared to his brother and grandfather, and his marital difficulties led to his being dubbed the "Wicked Earl".
Early life John Francis Stanley Russell was born on 12 August 1865 at Alderley Park in Cheshire. He was the first child of the politician Viscount Amberley and suffragist Viscountess Amberley. His paternal grandfather, the Earl Russell, twice served as prime minister and had been an architect of the Reform Act 1832. His mother's parents were the politician Lord Stanley and education campaigner Lady Stanley, and Alderley Park was their seat. Frank Russell thus descended from two prominent Whig families.
Unconventional for their time, the Amberleys believed in birth control, feminism, political reforms then considered radical (including votes for women and the working classes) and free love, and lived according to their ideals. For example, feeling it unfair that Douglas Spalding, the tutor of their son Frank, should remain celibate, the viscountess invited Spalding to share her bed, with the approval of her husband. The Amberleys had two children after Frank, Rachel (born 1868) and Bertrand (born 1872). The family lived at Rodborough house (near Stroud), which belonged to the viscount's father, and then at Ravenscroft Hall, near Trellech, where Frank was allowed to do much as he pleased, including roaming the countryside. His parents had lost religious faith and Frank was not called upon to attend church. By age eight, he had read, for pleasure, the complete works of Sir Walter Scott, and began a lifelong love of science and engineering by attending the Royal Society's lectures for children.
In December 1873, the family journeyed to Italy; during the return the following May, Frank came down with diphtheria. He was nursed by his mother, and recovered, but in June both she and Rachel fell ill with the disease. The viscountess died on 28 June and her daughter five days later, dealing the viscount a blow from which he never really recovered. He died on 9 January 1876 from pneumonia. The viscount's will nominated T. J. Sanderson, a friend from his university days, and Spalding as co-guardians of Frank and Bertrand. The earl and his wife, Lady Russell, might have accepted Sanderson, even though he was (like Spalding) an atheist, but Spalding was of a lower social class and was not acceptable, especially once they had the opportunity to read the Amberleys' surviving papers and learnt the nature of his relationship with the viscountess. Lord and Lady Russell brought suit in the Court of Chancery, and Sanderson and Spalding chose not to fight the suit. Frank and Bertrand were placed in the custody of their paternal grandparents, with two of the Russells' adult children, Rollo and Agatha, also co-guardians.
This took Frank from what he later called the "free air of Ravenscroft" where he could wander as he wished, to his grandparents' home at Pembroke House, where he was closely supervised and confined to the grounds. He found the atmosphere stiflingno subject considered vulgar could be mentioned, and he was required to go to church and have religious education. The earl was by then past 80, two decades older than his wife, and spent many of his waking hours reading: the house was dominated by Lady Russell, who employed a strict moral code in raising the boys. Frank was not allowed much time alone with Bertrand, as he was believed a bad influence on his younger brother, and Frank Russell wrote of Bertrand, "Till he went to Cambridge he was an unendurable little prig." Annabel Huth Jackson, a friend of both boys, deemed Pembroke House, "an unsuitable place ... for children to be brought up in." George Bernard Shaw, a half-century later, wrote to Frank of his incredulity that the boy had not murdered his Uncle Rollo and burned the place down.
Education Frank was sent to Cheam as a boarder in 1876. He was happier at school than he had been at Pembroke Lodge. In his memoirs he remembered his indignation at being addressed by his father's courtesy title, Viscount Amberley, which was now his as heir apparent to the earldom. He was still at Cheam when in 1878, his grandfather died, making Frank the 2nd Earl Russell.
Frank then attended Winchester College, from 1879 to 1883. Winchester became his spiritual home, and he expressed his reverence for the school in his autobiography. George Santayana, who would be a long-time friend of Frank Russell, described Winchester as "the only place he loved and the only place he was loved". Frank briefly became pious while at Winchester, going so far as to be confirmed by the Bishop of Winchester in November 1880. The orphaned earl was taken under the wing of his housemaster, the Revd George Richardson, and his wife Sarah. It was Sarah Richardson that Santayana was thinking of in making his statement; she later defended Frank Russell as his marital problems filled the daily papers, and he was devastated by her death in 1909. At Winchester, Frank spent four of his happiest years and acquired many of the friends he would have in adult life. From about the time Frank began at Winchester, Frank and Bertrand began to spend time with their maternal grandmother, Lady Stanley, whom they came to like greatly as far less priggish than Lady Russell. Frank came to find Lady Stanley's London residence at 40Dover Street a refuge from Pembroke House.
It was at Winchester that he befriended the future poet and critic Lionel Johnson, whom he would describe as "the greatest influence of my life at Winchester". They were friends in Russell's final term at Winchester, and Johnson visited Pembroke House, but the friendship did not truly blossom until Russell went up to Balliol College, Oxford, in 1883. The pair wrote long, earnest letters to each other in which they explored spiritual matters and questions of sin and morality. In 1919 Russell anonymously published Johnson's side of the correspondence as Some Winchester Letters of Lionel Johnson.
At Balliol, Russell read classics. The scholar of classical Greek literature Benjamin Jowett was then Master of Balliol and also Vice-Chancellor of Oxford. Russell found the university stimulating, welcoming the "untrammelled and unfettered discussions on everything in heaven and earth". He wrote to Johnson at Winchester, and after the correspondence was forbidden by Johnson's father, routed his letters through fellow undergraduate Charles Sayle. Russell joined university clubs and other groups, and made satisfactory academic progress through much of his first two years, but his Oxford career was dramatically cut short when in May 1885, as Russell related it in his memoirs, he was sent down by Jowett for supposedly writing a "scandalous" letter to another male undergraduate. Russell denied the charges but was refused a formal inquiry. Incensed at having been falsely accused, he lost his temper with Jowett, telling him he was no gentleman, and left the college. Even after a year, Jowett refused Russell re-admission to Balliol, and refused the necessary recommendation to allow Russell to enter a Cambridge college.
The veracity of Russell's account of his sending-down is open to question; Santayana deemed it a fabrication, based on what Russell had privately told him, but at the core of it was the nature of Russell's relationship with Johnson. In April 1885, Johnson, who had recently turned 18 but appeared younger, stayed overnight in Russell's rooms after missing the last train to London, and, according to Santayana, the authorities had seen the two together and declared Johnson too young to be Russell's "natural friend". Nevertheless, Santayana wrote that the relations between Russell and Johnson had not been "in the least erotic or even playful". In July 1885, two months after Russell was sent down, Johnson's father enquired of Jowett whether Russell was a suitable companion for Lionel, and was told he was not, and that further acquaintance between the two should be forbidden. Russell and Jowett reconciled to some extent, and the master was present at the earl's first wedding in 1890. Russell, though, missed Jowett's funeral in 1893, alleging rheumatism, and remained bitter about the end of his Oxford career for the rest of his life. Santayana stated that any "unnatural desires" on Russell's part did not last, given that he turned out "a perfectly normal pronounced polygamous male".
Early adulthood