RUSSELL, Jesse David Watts (1812-1879), of Ilam Hall, Staffordshire

A young Conservative landed gentleman, Russell’s endorsement of Sir Robert Peel’s abolition of the corn laws in 1846 led to his repudiation by his protectionist constituency, terminating his brief parliamentary career. His support for free trade was surprising in view of his earlier votes and defiance of Peel on other economic and social issues.

Russell’s father, Jesse Watts Russell (1786-1876), was the son of a London soap manufacturer and later acquired estates in Northamptonshire and Staffordshire through marriage and purchase respectively. He represented the rotten borough of Gatton in the unreformed Parliament.1HP Commons, 1820-1832, vii. 676. In 1832 Russell’s father unsuccessfully contested the new constituency of North Staffordshire and was described by the Tory squire Ralph Sneyd, of Keele Park, as of ‘no family … but of large fortune – [a] highly respectable character of sound conservative principles’.2Ralph Sneyd to earl of Clare, 16 Aug. 1832, Keele University, SC 6/179.

In January 1841 Russell the younger was announced by the local Conservative Association as one of their candidates for North Staffordshire and he was returned unopposed at the general election that June.3Staffordshire Advertiser, 9, 23 Jan. 1841. In his public speeches Russell sneered at Liberals who had claimed that the Reform Act ‘was to cure everything’ and who now prophesised the ‘miraculous results’ that would stem from free trade.4Staffordshire Advertiser, 30 Jan. 1841. He derided Melbourne’s Whig government, which was ‘indebted to O’Connell and the Ladies of the Bedchamber for its existence’.5Ibid. On the new poor law, Russell ‘could not say that he entirely concurred in the principle of that measure, and yet he could not say that he entirely disapproved of it’. He was also strongly critical of Palmerston’s meddling foreign policy which had established ‘feeble phantom’ governments in Belgium and Portugal and provoked war rather than peace. 6Staffordshire Advertiser, 10 July 1841.

A silent member, Russell was in the majority that voted Melbourne’s government out of office, 27 Aug. 1841, and he supported Peel’s revision of the corn laws and reintroduction of income tax the following year. Despite his protestations on the hustings, Russell proved to be a reliable supporter of the new poor law in the division lobbies. In 1844 his voting behaviour became more rebellious. He was among the paternalist Conservatives who voted for a 10 hour day for factory workers in defiance of their party leader, 22 Mar., 13 May 1844. In June he was among the protectionists who backed William Miles’s amendment to lower the duty on colonial sugar, and he repeated his vote when Peel attempted to reverse the result of the division. On religious issues, Russell’s votes were more predictable, opposing inquiry into Irish church temporalities and the Dissenters’ chapels bill. In 1845 he supported the introduction of Peel’s Maynooth college bill but was absent from the divisions on the second and third readings.

Before the 1846 session Russell attended a public meeting at Stafford to explain to the electors that he supported Peel’s proposed repeal of the corn laws. Russell declared that ‘he had come to the conclusion that the measures of Sir Robert Peel were … calculated to benefit the country’ and felt ‘conscientiously compelled’ to support them. However, he admitted that his constituents had a right to express their opinions on the subject and if his supporters were overwhelmingly opposed to Peel’s policy he would resign.7Morning Post, 3 Feb. 1846. As the meeting ended without a vote, Russell felt free to resume his place at Westminster and repeatedly divided in favour of the corn importation bill. He also supported the Irish coercion bill, the defeat of which led to Peel’s resignation, 25 June 1846. A few days later Russell sided with the free trade MPs who voted against Lord George Bentinck’s proposal to maintain the existing level of duty on foreign sugar, 28 June 1846. In the 1847 session he opposed Bentinck’s Irish railways bill, but continued to vote with protectionist Conservatives in favour of a 10 hour day for factory workers.

Russell retired at the 1847 general election as his ‘altered opinions were no longer in harmony with the great bulk’ of his supporters. However, he defended his support for free trade which, he asserted, promoted ‘the welfare of the community’.8Staffordshire Advertiser, 12 June 1847. Russell did not seek a return to Parliament thereafter, but later became chairman of his local Conservative association in Northamptonshire.9Northampton Mercury, 15 Mar. 1879. He finally succeeded his 89 year old father in 1875 but died four years later. As Russell’s two sons had predeceased him, Biggin Hall, in Northamptonshire, with a surrounding estate of 5,349 acres worth £8,840 per annum, and a personal estate of £40,000 passed to his widow Mary Neville Watts Russell.10Burke’s landed gentry (1886), ii. 1592-3; J. Bateman, The great landowners of Great Britain (1971 edn.), 330; Calendar of Grants of Probate and Letters of Administration (1879), 299. The family’s Staffordshire seat, Ilam Hall, had been sold after the death of his father.11http://lh.matthewbeckett.com/houses/lh_staffordshire_ilamhall.html.