John Russell, Viscount Amberley (10 December 1842 – 9 January 1876) was the eldest son of John Russell, 1st Earl Russell

John Russell, 1st Earl Russell

John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, KG, GCMG, PC , known as Lord John Russell before 1861, was an English Whig and Liberal politician who served twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century....

. As such, from 1861 he took his father's junior title of Viscount Amberley, but he did not live to inherit the earldom; this passed, after his death, to his eldest son John Francis Stanley Russell, 2nd Earl Russell. He married The Honourable Katherine Louisa Stanley (1844–1874), fifth daughter of the 2nd Baron Stanley of Alderley

Edward Stanley, 2nd Baron Stanley of Alderley

Edward John Stanley, 2nd Baron Stanley of Alderley PC , known as The Lord Eddisbury between 1848 and 1850, was a British politician.-Background:...

 in 1864, and had two other children in addition to John Francis Stanley Russell: a daughter, Rachel Lucretia Russell, who died at the age of 6, and Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...

, the philosopher.

Viscount Amberley was a progressive Liberal

Liberal Party (UK)

The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...

 MP

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 for Nottingham

Nottingham (UK Parliament constituency)

Nottingham was a parliamentary borough in Nottinghamshire, which elected two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons from 1295. In 1885 the constituency was abolished and the city of Nottingham divided into three single-member constituencies....

 from 1866 to 1868. He had social views unusual for his time: he was an atheist

Atheism

Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...

 - he wrote a book called Analysis of Religious Belief. His father took steps to suppress it, without success, and his mother helped have it published. He was an advocate of birth control

Birth control

Birth control is an umbrella term for several techniques and methods used to prevent fertilization or to interrupt pregnancy at various stages. Birth control techniques and methods include contraception , contragestion and abortion...

 (as was his wife) - his position on this subject cost him his position as an MP. He tolerated the intermittent affair that his wife conducted with their children's tutor, the biologist

Biology

Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...

 Douglas Spalding

Douglas Spalding

Douglas Alexander Spalding was an English biologist. He was born in Islington in London in 1841, and began life as a manual labourer. Subsequently he lived in Scotland, near Aberdeen; the philosopher Alexander Bain persuaded the University of Aberdeen to allow him to attend courses without charge....

; however her death, and that of their daughter (both of diphtheria

Diphtheria

Diphtheria is an upper respiratory tract illness caused by Corynebacterium diphtheriae, a facultative anaerobic, Gram-positive bacterium. It is characterized by sore throat, low fever, and an adherent membrane on the tonsils, pharynx, and/or nasal cavity...

), affected him greatly. He had health issues to begin with suffering from tuberculosis

Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...

, and being heartbroken he died soon after.

Issue:

1. The Honourable John Francis Stanley Russell, later Francis "Frank", 2nd Earl Russell (1865–1931)
2. The Honourable Rachel Lucretia Russell (2 March 1868 - 3 July 1874)
3. The Honourable Bertrand Russell, later Bertrand Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
   Bertrand Russell
   Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...
   
   , philosopher (1872–1970).

External links

• Pictures of Viscount Amberley at the Bertrand Russell gallery