John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, KG, GCMG, PC (18 August 1792 – 28 May 1878), known as Lord John Russell before 1861, was an English Whig and Liberal politician who served twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century.
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 ...
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John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, KG, GCMG, PC (18 August 1792 – 28 May 1878), known as Lord John Russell before 1861, was an English Whig and Liberal politician who served twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century.
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 the University of Edinburgh, which he attended for three years but did not take a degree. He is one of only five university-educated British Prime Ministers to have not attended Oxford or Cambridge (the others being the Earl of Bute, Andrew Bonar Law, Neville Chamberlain and Gordon Brown.)
Russell entered parliament as a Whig in 1813. In 1819, Russell...
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