John Russell, 4th Earl Russell


John Conrad Russell, 4th Earl Russell was the eldest son of the philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell and his second wife, Dora Black. His middle name was a tribute to the writer Joseph Conrad, whom his father had long admired. He was the great-grandson of the 19th century British Whig Prime Minister Lord John Russell. He succeeded to the earldom on the death of his father on 2 February 1970.

Education

John Russell was educated at the progressive Dartington Hall School, the University of California, Los Angeles and Harvard University. Upon leaving Harvard in 1943 he returned to Britain and enlisted in the Royal Naval Reserve. In the Reserve he learned the Japanese language.

Career

Russell had a distinguished early career, working for the FAO among other organisations, but in later life he was diagnosed as schizophrenic. This made him the only person in the United Kingdom to be denied the vote on two counts, first, for being a peer and, second, for being insane. He made a speech in the House of Lords that was considered so outlandish that to this day it is the only speech unrecorded by Hansard.

Personal life

He was married on 28 August 1946 to Susan Doniphan Lindsay, daughter of the poet Vachel Lindsay. They had three daughters: Lady Felicity Anne Russell, Lady Sarah Elizabeth Russell, and Lady Lucy Catherine Russell. Neither Sarah or Lucy married or bore children; Felicity had one daughter, Rowan. Like their father and mother, the three daughters suffered from serious mental health challenges. Lucy, who was Bertrand Russell's favourite grandchild, died from self-immolation, at the age of 26, in the forecourt of a church near Penzance, ostensibly protesting in the cause of world peace.
Russell was succeeded as Earl by his half-brother, the historian Conrad Russell, 5th Earl Russell.