Everything about Lord William Russell totally explained
» Not to be confused with the 17th-century Whig politician, William Russell, Lord Russell.Lord William Russell (
20 August 1767 –
5 May 1840), a member of the British aristocratic family of Russell and longtime
Member of Parliament for
Tavistock, did very little to attract the public attention after the end of his political career until, in 1840, he was murdered in his sleep by his
valet,
François Benjamin Courvoisier.
His life
Russell was the posthumous child of
Francis Russell, Marquess of Tavistock, who in turn was the eldest son of
John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford. He was the youngest brother of
Francis Russell, 5th Duke of Bedford, and
John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford, and the uncle of
Francis Russell, 7th Duke of Bedford.
Russell married Lady Charlotte Villiers, the eldest daughter of
George Bussy Villiers, 4th Earl of Jersey, on 11 July 1789; they'd seven children together. Lady Charlotte died in 1808. As was mentioned in the evidence at the trial of his murderer, Russell had a locket containing some of his wife's hair which he valued greatly.
The Times, reporting on proceedings where Russell's eligibility to register as a voter in Middlesex and Surrey was challenged in 1836, included the information that he spent much time abroad, living in hotels when in England. However, by 1840 Lord William was residing in the London house where he was murdered.
Political career
As with many members of the Russell family, notably his nephew the future Prime Minister
Lord John Russell (who was
Colonial Secretary at the time of the murder), Lord William was a
Whig politician.
Russell represented the county of
Surrey in the
House of Commons from
1789 until he was defeated in the
1807 election. Russell held junior ministerial office in the
Ministry of all the Talents, being appointed a
Lord of the Admiralty in 1806 and retaining the post until the fall of the ministry in 1807.
Russell, taking advantage of the fact that different constituencies polled on different dates, remained in Parliament by being elected for the Russell family
pocket borough of
Tavistock. He represented that constituency from 1807 until he retired in 1820 and then again from 1826 until he again retired from Parliament in 1831.
Lord William continued to support the Whig Party after he left the legislature.
The Times reported in 1837 that few Whigs supported the government at the Great Middlesex Meeting, "inasmuch as not a man of them, barring the young Lord who had taken the chair, and his aged uncle Lord William Russell, ever showed fight at all".
Death and investigation
On the morning of 6 May, 1840, Russell's housemaid, Sarah Mancer, discovered the lower floors of the house in disarray. Fearing that a robbery had taken place in the night, she went to Courvoisier's room and found him already dressed. Upon seeing the state of the house, he agreed that a robbery must have occurred; Courvoisier and Mancer then proceeded to Russell's bedchamber, where Courvoisier immediately went to open the shutters as he always did. Thus it was Mancer who first noticed that Russell was dead; his throat had been cut. The police were summoned; Courvoisier drew their attention to marks of violence upon the door to his pantry, asserting that this was where the robbers had entered the house.
The police, however, came quickly to the conclusion that the "robbery" had been staged in order to draw suspicion away from some member of the household. Numerous small gold and silver articles, as well as a ten-
pound banknote, were found to be missing; some of the articles were soon discovered wrapped up in a parcel inside the house, which was curious – a thief would have carried them off straightaway rather than leave them behind. The discovery of several more gold articles, as well as the banknote, hidden in the
wainscoting and in Courvoisier's pantry cemented their suspicion of the valet. Additionally, a
screwdriver in his possession was found to match the marks on the pantry door as well as marks left by the forcing of the
silverware drawer.
It appeared that Courvoisier's guilt still wouldn't be proved conclusively; however, an inventory of the house turned up several items of silverware also missing. Silver matching their description was located in a French hotel in
Leicester Square; when this news was conveyed to Courvoisier by his attorney, he immediately confessed to both the thefts and the murder.
It came out in Courvoisier's confession that Russell had discovered his silverware thefts and ordered Courvoisier to turn in his resignation from the household. Rather than lose his position, Courvoisier decided to murder Russell in order to conceal the matter.
Courvoisier had reportedly read
William Harrison Ainsworth's novel
Jack Sheppard in the days leading up to the crime, and several news reports implied that that novel's glorification of the criminal life had led him to commit the murder. The concept wasn't pursued in Courvoisier's court defence, however.
Courvoisier was executed at
Newgate Prison on
6 July 1840.
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