Alexander Russel

The huge monument to Alexander Russel in Dean Cemetery

Alexander Russel (1814–1876) was a Scottish journalist, for nearly 30 years editor of The Scotsman.

Early life

Russel was born on 10 December 1814 in Edinburgh; his father, a solicitor and a liberal in politics, died when he was still very young, while his mother, a daughter of John Somerville, clerk in the jury court, survived till he was 50. After attending the classical school kept by the Rev. Ross Kennedy in St. James Square, Edinburgh, he was apprenticed young to a printer. John Johnstone, later editor of the Inverness Courier, was one of his fellow-apprentices, and his wife Christian Isobel Johnstone, who had a major role in editing Tait's Magazine, gave Russel the opportunity of contributing to the magazine.^[1]

In 1839 Russel was appointed editor of the Berwick Advertiser. While at Berwick-on-Tweed he made the acquaintance of David Robertson of Ladykirk, and with him took part in Northumbrian political contests. In 1842 he left Berwick for Cupar, where he edited the Fife Herald. There he met some influential liberals, including Admiral Wemyss, Edward Ellice the elder and his son.^[1]

The Scotsman

After two years in Cupar, Russell became editor of a new journal in Kilmarnock. John Ritchie, one of the founders of the biweekly Edinburgh paper The Scotsman, was impressed with his articles, and invited him to become assistant to Charles Maclaren, the editor of The Scotsman which Russel joined in March 1845. In 1848 he became its editor.^[1]

Russel's journalism became identified with The Scotsman. His editorial line supported the Anti-Corn-law League, and drew attention to the destitution of the Highlands. The Scotsman's support contributed to Thomas Babington Macaulay's re-election for Edinburgh in 1852; but in the same year Duncan McLaren successfully sued the paper for libel. From June 1855 The Scotsman became a daily paper. The Reform Club elected Russel an honorary member in 1875, "for distinguished public services".^[1]

Later life

Russel attended and described the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. Serious illness in 1872 compelled him to winter in the south of France. He died suddenly, of angina pectoris, on 18 July 1876. Russel was noted as a conversationalist as well as a writer, but not as a public speaker, and he declined in 1872 an invitation to become a candidate for the lord-rectorship of Aberdeen.^[1]

His monument (a huge red granite obelisk by McGlashan) forms the centrepiece of the north section of Dean Cemetery in Edinburgh.

Works

Angling was Russel's favourite recreation, and his articles on it in The Scotsman, the Quarterly Review, and Blackwood's Magazine were collected in The Salmon (1864). An article by him on "Agricultural Complaints", which appeared in the Edinburgh Review for April 1850, was praised by Francis Jeffrey.^[1]

Family

Russel was twice married. His first wife was Jessie McWilliam, his second Helen Evans (née Carter), one of the Edinburgh Seven. He left children by both marriages. A daughter married Francis Dalzell Finlay the younger, proprietor of the Belfast newspaper the Northern Whig.^[1][2]

Notes

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1897). "Russel, Alexander". Dictionary of National Biography 49. London: Smith, Elder & Co.