RUSSELL, John, viscount Amberley (1842-1876), of 37 Chesham Place, London, Mdx.

Styled a viscount after his father took a peerage as Earl Russell in July 1861, Amberley was ‘pure Russell, short, black hair, not very strong, not very good sight; artistic and deeply religious’.1Earl Russell, My life and adventures (1923), 11. Though an agnostic by the early 1860s, Amberley remained pious, arguing in several periodical articles that the clergymen of England should be given unfettered freedom of expression, and working for over ten years on his An Analysis of Religious Belief (1876), a comparative study of religions published posthumously.2J. Parry, ‘Russell, John, Viscount Amberley (1842-1876)’, Oxf. DNB. www.oxforddnb.com His articles earned the praise of John Stuart Mill, who stated that, in Amberley, ‘there is no young man coming forward in public life on whom I build so much hope’.3The later letters of John Stuart Mill, 1849-1873, ed. by F.E. Mineka and D.N. Lindley (1972), 1000. Amberley became a follower and friend of Mill, and in May 1865 he publicly supported Mill’s canvass in Westminster, praising his ‘conscientious adherence to principle’.4The Times, 6 May 1865.

With his father anxious for him to enter parliament, Amberley stood as a Liberal for Leeds in 1865, declaring himself a fervent supporter of civil and religious liberties, the abolition of church rates and the lowering of the borough franchise to £6, but he was defeated.5Leeds Mercury, 6 July 1865, 8 July 1865. Contesting a double by-election at Nottingham in May 1866, Amberley endured a brutal and humiliating campaign: his opponents dressed dolls as babies in mockery of his youth,6Pall Mall Gazette, 11 May 1866. and on the night of the nomination his wife, Katharine, wrote ‘we went to bed very sorry we had ever come here’.7The Amberley papers: the letters and diaries of Lord and Lady Amberley, ed. B. Russell and P. Russell, vol. i (1937), 491-2. A supporter of the Sunday opening of the British Museum, reform of land tenure in Ireland and free trade, Amberley came second in the poll, entering parliament during the final month of his father’s second premiership.8Daily News, 3 May 1866; The Times, 9 May 1866, 10 May 1866.

Giving his first major speech on the Conservative ministry’s reform bill, Amberley criticised Derby’s administration for maintaining ‘injurious distinctions’, arguing that ‘we must get rid altogether of the spirit of class’ and legislate for ‘all members of one common nation’.9Hansard, 25 Mar. 1867, vol. 186, cc. 529-34. Although he ‘had felt horribly nervous’ and his ‘voice was unfortunately weak’,10Amberley papers, ii. 22-3. his speech was well received: he was personally praised by Mill, and Disraeli congratulated his father.11Daily News, 11 Jan. 1876. In 1867 Amberley introduced a bill to allow secularists and others to charge for Sunday evening lectures,12Hansard, 2 Apr. 1867, vol. 186, cc. 998-1004. which, despite support from Mill, was defeated at its second reading.13Hansard, 19 June 1867, vol. 188, c. 89. A similar fate met his registration of voters bill, which proposed that the name of every elector should appear upon the register only once.14Hansard, 7 May 1867, vol. 187, c. 186; 21 May 1867, vol. 187, cc. 915-7. He also voted for Mill’s defeated amendment on women’s suffrage.15Hansard, 20 May 1867, vol. 187, c. 845.

Although his ‘physique and temperament’ were later described as ‘not suited to the House’,16Daily News, 11 Jan. 1876. Amberley was a frequent speaker, and his comments during the Hyde Park bill debate made the ‘House laugh a good deal’, which, according to his wife, was ‘a great step’ towards him becoming more ‘light and humorous’.17Amberley papers, ii. 46. His service on select committees included the bank holidays bill,18PP 1867-8 (354), vii. 3. and the libel bill,19PP 1867 (208), ix. 590. where he argued that the guilty party should be the speaker who uttered libel, rather than the newspaper which published it.20Hansard, 20 May 1868, vol. 192, cc. 602, 607. Returning from a five month tour of the United States, where he and his wife were fêted by radicals in Boston and Chicago,21A.P. Robson, ‘Russell, Katharine Louisa, Viscountess Amberley (1842–1874)’, Oxf. DNB, http://www. oxforddnb.com he made a number of contributions to debates on the 1868 election petitions and corrupt practices bill, consistently favouring harsher punishments for treating and for candidates who employed corrupt agents, positions that placed him in the minority in the ensuing divisions.22Hansard, 25 June 1868, vol. 192, c. 2188; 14 July 1868, vol. 193, c. 1178; 17 July 1868, vol. 193, c. 1370; 23 July 1868, vol. 193, cc. 1681, 1684.

With a dissolution of parliament looming in 1868, his wife recorded that Amberley ‘has no ardent wish for any seat but will not say so for his father’s sake’.23Amberley papers, ii. 121. Disliking the roughness and corruption of many large boroughs, Amberley eventually opted to stand at South Devonshire, declaring that he would not make any canvass as doing so would show ‘little respect to a constituency’.24Daily News, 25 Nov. 1868; The Times, 30 Nov. 1868. The campaign, however, was overshadowed by controversy about remarks made at a meeting of the Dialectical Society, where he had declared his support for birth control as a means of checking downward pressure on wages. Amberley was subsequently described as an ‘insult to the medical profession’,25Medical Times and Gazette, vol. 2, 1868, 148. and accused by his political opponents of lacking commitment to marriage and supporting abortion. After being defeated at the poll, he retired from politics to concentrate on his religious studies, though he continued to advocate radical causes, including women’s suffrage and the establishment of an international federation to prevent wars.26Parry, ‘Russell, John, Viscount Amberley’.

Amberley bought Ravenscroft, a property near Chepstow in Monmouthshire in 1870, and settled into a more domestic life, but he remained weak, and suffered from epilepsy in 1873. The death of his daughter and wife from diphtheria in the summer of 1874 plunged him into a severe depression, and he died of bronchitis at Ravenscroft in January 1876.27Parry, ‘Russell, John, Viscount Amberley’. Succeeded by his eldest son, John Francis Stanley Russell, Amberley and his wife’s papers were edited in two volumes by his younger son, the philosopher Bertrand Russell, and his wife, in 1937.28The Amberley papers: the letters and diaries of Lord and Lady Amberley, ed. B. Russell and P. Russell, vol. i (1937).