RUSSELL, Hon. Edward (c.1643-1714).

Russell was apparently more deeply affected than his brothers by the Presbyterian doctrines of the family tutor. He kept an ejected minister as his chaplain and his marriage was arranged by a prominent nonconformist divine. Previously his allowance had been under £400 p.a., and most of his life was spent in obscurity. He served for the family borough of Tavistock in the Exclusion Parliaments. In 1679 Shaftesbury marked him ‘honest’, and he was named to the committee of elections and privileges, and voted for the exclusion bill. He took no known part in the next two Parliaments, and in 1685 was defeated both for Tavistock and Bedfordshire. He was returned to the Convention for the county, and may have been the ‘Sir Edward Russell’ appointed to the committee for reversing the attainder of his brother William. The other references in the Journals are probably to his namesake and cousin; but he supported the disabling clause in the bill to restore corporations, and remained a court Whig under William III. He died on 30 June 1714 and was buried at Chenies.1D. R. Lacey, Dissent and Parl. Pols. 441; J. H. Wiffen, Hist. Mems. House of Russell, ii. 222; Le Neve, Mon. Angl. 1700-15, p. 289.