Background
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.
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 Review Ross Kennedy in Saint James Square, Edinburgh, he was apprenticed young to a printer.
In 1839 Russel was appointed editor of the Berwick Advertiser. In 1842 he left Berwick for Cupar, where he edited the Fife Herald. 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, was impressed with his articles, and invited him to become assistant to Charles Maclaren, the editor of which Russel joined in March 1845.
In 1848 he became its editors Russel"s journalism became identified with His editorial line supported the Anti-Corn-law League, and drew attention to the destitution of the Highlands.
"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 became a daily paper.
The Reform Club elected Russel an honorary member in 1875, "for distinguished public services". 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. His monument (a huge red granite obelisk by McGlashan) forms the centrepiece of the north section of Dean Cemetery in Edinburgh.
Russel was twice married. A daughter married Francis Dalzell Finlay the younger, proprietor of the Belfast newspaper the Northern Whig.