Who was John Russell, 1st Earl Russell and why is he historically significant?
John Russell, 1st Earl Russell was a British Whig and Liberal statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1846 to 1852 and from 1865 to 1866. He is best known as the principal architect of the Reform Act 1832, the first major reform of Parliament since the Restoration, and for a range of social reforms including reducing capital offences from thirty-seven to sixteen and introducing civil marriage in England and Wales.
What was John Russell's role in the Reform Act 1832?
Russell was one of a committee of four tasked by Prime Minister Earl Grey with drafting the Reform Act 1832, alongside Lord Durham, Lord Duncannon, and Sir James Graham. Despite not yet being in the Cabinet, he was chosen to introduce the bill to the House of Commons in March 1831 and steered it through a year of difficult parliamentary progress.
How did John Russell's government respond to the Irish Famine?
Russell's government initially introduced public works that employed roughly half a million people by the end of 1846, but abandoned that programme in January 1847 in favour of workhouse relief and soup kitchens. The response is now widely regarded as counterproductive and disastrous; an estimated one million people died and well over one million more emigrated, accounting for roughly a quarter of Ireland's population.
What was the Durham letter written by John Russell in 1850?
On the 4th of November 1850, Russell sent a letter to the Bishop of Durham, published in The Times the same day, denouncing Pope Pius IX's bull Universalis Ecclesiae, which had reintroduced Catholic bishops to England and Wales for the first time since the Reformation. Russell declared that no foreign prince or potentate would be permitted to impose his authority on the nation, winning popular support in England but alienating Irish MPs and damaging his parliamentary position.
What was Lord Palmerston's famous 'tit for tat' with John Russell?
After Russell forced Palmerston out of the Foreign Office in late 1851 for recognising Napoleon III's coup without consulting the Queen or Cabinet, Palmerston took revenge by turning a vote on a militia bill into a confidence motion. When the amendment passed on the 21st of February 1852, it brought down Russell's government. Palmerston described the manoeuvre as his "tit for tat with Johnny Russell."
How is John Russell, 1st Earl Russell connected to Bertrand Russell?
Bertrand Russell was John Russell's grandson. After the deaths of John Russell's son Viscount Amberley in 1876 and daughter-in-law Viscountess Amberley in 1874, Earl Russell and his wife raised the orphaned children at Pembroke Lodge in Richmond Park. Bertrand Russell later recalled his grandfather as "a kindly old man in a wheelchair."