Conrad Sebastian Robert Russell, 5th Earl Russell, (15 April 1937 – 14 October 2004), was a British historian and politician.

As an academic historian, he worked primarily on 17th-century English history, having extensively written and lectured on the parliamentary struggles of the English Civil Wars. In 1987 he succeeded his half-brother, John Russell, as Earl Russell, gaining a seat in the House of Lords.

Early life

From a long family line of distinguished Whigs and Liberals, Russell was the son of the philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell and his third wife Patricia Russell. He was also a great-grandson of the 19th-century Whig Prime Minister Lord John Russell. He was named after his father's great friend Joseph Conrad, who was his godfather. He was educated at Eton College, where he was a King's Scholar, and Merton College, Oxford.

In 1960, he began his career as a lecturer in history at Bedford College, London.

Death

Russell's health worsened in the late 1990s and in 2004 he died of respiratory failure and the complications of emphysema, at Central Middlesex Hospital, a year after the death of his wife in 2003.

He was succeeded as Earl Russell by his elder son, Nicholas, who died in 2014 and was succeeded by his brother, John, who is also a politician.

Published books

  • The Crisis of Parliaments: English History 1509–1660 (1971)
  • The Origins of the English Civil War (1973)
  • Parliaments and English Politics, 1621–1629 (1979)
  • Unrevolutionary England:1603-1642 (1990)
  • The Causes of the English Civil War (1990)
  • The Fall of the British Monarchies, 1637–1642 (1991)
  • Academic Freedom (1993)
  • An Intelligent Person's Guide to Liberalism (1999)

In his book Academic Freedom, Russell examines the ideal and the limits of academic freedom, and the relations between the university and the state. He notes (p. 24) that his father's career is a reminder that a free society is not a guarantee against losing an academic job for holding very unpopular opinions on non-academic subjects, as Bertrand Russell in fact did twice.

Arms

References

Sources

  • biog - Conrad Russell