Robin Russell, 14th Duke of Bedford

Henry Robin Ian Russell, 14th Duke of Bedford, DL (21 January 1940 – 13 June 2003) was a British peer. He became better known to the public than most of his ancestors by appearing in three series of the reality television programme Country House, made by Tiger Aspect Productions for BBC Two,^[1] which in turn inspired Monarch of the Glen. He was born at the Ritz in London to John Ian Robert Russell, Lord Howland (later 13th Duke) and his first wife, Clare Gwendolyn Bridgman.

Biography

The Duke of Bedford was educated at Western Province Preparatory School and then the Diocesan College in South Africa. His father, the future 13th Duke of Bedford, had gone to South Africa in 1948 to farm in the Paarl area. He continued his education at Institut Le Rosey in Switzerland and at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. In the early 1970s he took over the running of the Woburn Estate from his father, a pioneer of the commercialisation of country houses, who retired to Monaco. The Duke continued with the modernisation of the estate, and created a leading golf and country club business called Woburn Golf and Country Club. However his plans to develop a major theme park at Woburn failed to come to fruition. He suffered a severe stroke on 21 February 1988 when he was aged just 48,^[2] which he was not expected to survive but did. The stroke led to a more relaxed nature and much less of a workaholic over his latter years. With his wife, the former Henrietta Joan Tiarks, he appeared in the BBC series Country House, detailing daily life at Woburn Abbey, the Bedfords' ancestral home in Bedfordshire, England. He succeeded his father to the dukedom on 25 October 2002, but died after another stroke in Tavistock Intensive Care Unit, National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, London, 2003. This made him the shortest lived Duke of Bedford. He and his wife had already handed over control of Woburn Abbey to his son Andrew in 2001.

Family and children

The Marquess of Tavistock married Henrietta Joan Tiarks, daughter of Henry Frederic Tiarks and Ina Florence Marshman Bell, on 20 June 1961 at St Clement Danes in London. They had three sons:

• Andrew Ian Henry Russell, 15th Duke of Bedford (b. 30 March 1962)
• Lord Robin Loel Hastings Russell (b. 12 August 1963)
• Lord James Edward Herbrand Russell (b. 11 February 1975)

Titles and honours

Titles

• The Honourable Henry 'Robin' Russell (January 1940 – August 1940)
• Lord Howland (1940–1953)
• Marquess of Tavistock (1953–2002)
• His Grace The Duke of Bedford (2002–2003)

Honours

• Deputy Lieutenant of Bedfordshire (1985–2003)

References