Frank Russell, 2nd Earl Russell

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For other persons named Frank Russell, see Frank Russell (disambiguation).

John Francis Stanley Russell, 2nd Earl Russell known as Frank Russell, (18651931) was Bertrand Russell's elder brother and grandson of former prime minister, John Russell, 1st Earl Russell. He was married three times, including Elizabeth von Arnim, who caricatured him in her novels.

His first wife was Mary Edith Scott, who married him in 1890, tried to divorce him (and lost) in 1891, and sued for restoration of conjugal rights in 1894. He requested a judicial separation in 1895, but she appealed and it was overturned.

Russell married Marion Cooke Somerville, his second wife, in the United States in 1900 and was convicted of bigamy in the House of Lords on 18 July 1901. He was sentenced to only three months in prison, on account of the "extreme torture" he had suffered in his first marriage. The first Countess Russell had already obtained a divorce, and he married Mrs Somerville on 31 October 1901, three days after it became absolute.

His second wife divorced him in 1915, and he married Elizabeth von Arnim the next year. They separated in 1919.

Russell was the first peer to join the Labour Party and was Labour's Leader in the House of Lords. He was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Transport and Under-Secretary of State for India in Ramsay MacDonald's government. He supported his brother's pacifism, and was a close friend of George Santayana.

Peerage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by:
John Russell
Earl Russell
1878–1931
Succeeded by:
Bertrand Russell

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