Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 49.djvu/445

 Nooshirvan the Just’ (Calcutta Gazette, December 1813). Writing to him privately on 8 Nov. 1813, the governor-general, Lord Moira, spoke of his ‘able, upright, and dignified administration of justice,’ and like testimony to his merits was formally recorded in a general letter from the Bengal government to the court of directors, dated 7 Dec. 1813 (India Office Records). Russell left Calcutta two days later, and on his return to England the East India Company awarded him a pension of 2,000l. a year. After his retirement he declined his brother-in-law Lord Whitworth's offer of a seat in parliament, as member for East Grinstead, a pocket borough of the Sackville family, on the ground that he ‘did not choose to be any gentleman's gentleman.’ On 27 June 1816 he was sworn a member of the privy council. His remaining years were mainly spent at his country house, Swallowfield Park, Reading, where he died on 18 Jan. 1836.

He married, on 1 Aug. 1776, Anne, daughter of John Skinner of Lydd, Kent; she died in 1780, and, with her son Henry, who died in 1781, is buried at Lydd, where there is a monument to her memory by Flaxman. Russell married, secondly, on 23 July 1782, Anne Barbara (d. 1 Aug. 1814), fifth daughter of Sir Charles Whitworth, and sister of Charles, earl Whitworth; and by her had six sons and five daughters. Three of the sons entered the East India Company's service. Of Sir Henry (1783–1852), second baronet, who was resident at Hyderabad in 1810, Lord Wellesley said that he was the most promising young man he knew; he was father of Sir Charles Russell [q. v.] Charles (d. 1856), after leaving India, was member of parliament for Reading; and Francis Whitworth Russell (1790–1852) died at Chittagong on 25 March 1852.

There is a portrait of Russell, by George Chinnery, in the High Court, Calcutta; a replica is at Swallowfield Park, where also are portraits of him by Romney and John Jackson, R.A.

 RUSSELL, JAMES (1754–1836), regius professor of clinical surgery in Edinburgh University, born at Edinburgh in 1754, was son of James Russell, professor of natural philosophy at Edinburgh University, and Margaret, daughter of James Balfour of Pilrig. He was educated at Edinburgh, and was admitted a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh on 11 July 1777. In 1796–7 he was president of the College of Surgeons, and he materially promoted the interests of its museum. He resided at first in St. Andrew Square and subsequently in Abercrombie Place, Edinburgh. In early years he was surgeon to the Royal Infirmary, and soon afterwards engaged in active and successful practice. From 1786 to 1803 he gave clinical lectures in practical surgery in Edinburgh. In 1802 he petitioned the town council to found a chair of clinical surgery under the title of ‘the clinical and pathological professorship of surgery.’ The chair, founded entirely through his exertions, was created in June 1803, with an endowment of 50l. a year out of the ‘Bishops' Rents,’ and to it he was appointed on 7 July. Sir R. Christison comments on the ‘singular manner in which clinical surgery was taught by him.’ In lecturing he merely described groups of cases which had come under his notice. He was not an acting surgeon to the infirmary at the time, as the clinical professor has always been since. He received, however, the appointment of permanent consulting surgeon, in which capacity he regularly accompanied the attending surgeons in their visits, was cognisant of all that went on, and was in some measure answerable for all acts of surgical interference. He was allowed by the acting surgeons to lecture on the cases, and gave much useful information to well-attended classes. He is said to have been a somnolent lecturer—a quality which was fomented by an evening class-hour, and betrayed by an inveterate habit he had of ‘yawning while he spoke, and continuing to speak while he yawned.’ In 1834, when in his eighty-first year, with the sanction of the lord advocate, he sold his chair to James Syme for 300l. a year for his lifetime. He was a member of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh, and one of the original fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh; he was subsequently vice-president of the society, and contributed two papers to the ‘Transactions’: (1) ‘An Account of Experiments on Antimony,’ i. 16, and (2) on ‘A Singular Variety of Hernia,’ v. 23.

He was all his life much interested in art and literature; he made a collection of pictures, including old masters, which was scarcely excelled in Scotland. He also sketched himself in crayons and sepia. He used to have fortnightly suppers at his house, and there entertained many of the celebrities of ‘old Edinburgh,’ among them Sir Walter Scott (a connection of his wife's) and Sir William Hamilton.

Russell was a member of the church of Scotland and a conservative in politics. He died at his country residence, 