Background
He was the great-grandson of the 19th century British Whig Prime Minister Lord John Russell. He succeeded to the earldom on the death of his father on 2 February 1970.
He was the great-grandson of the 19th century British Whig Prime Minister Lord John Russell. He succeeded to the earldom on the death of his father on 2 February 1970.
Married on 28 August 1946 to Susan Doniphan Lindsay, daughter of the poet Vachel Lindsay, he had two daughters, Lady Sarah Elizabeth Russell, born on 16 January 1946, and Lady Lucy Catherine Russell (21 July 1948 – 11 April 1975), neither of whom married or bore children. John Russell had a distinguished early career, working for the Food and Agriculture Organization among other organisations, but in later life he was diagnosed as schizophrenic. This made him the only person in the United Kingdom to be denied the vote on two counts, first, for being a peer and, second, for being insane.
He made a speech in the House of Lords that was considered so outlandish that to this day it is the only speech unrecorded by Hansard.
John Russell was succeeded as Earl by his half-brother, the historian Conrad Russell, 5th Earl Russell.