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 to the dukedom. On 12 Feb. 1806 he was created a privy councillor, and took office as lord-lieutenant of Ireland in the administration of ‘all the talents.’ He resigned with his colleagues on 19 April 1807. Thenceforth he took little part in political life, chiefly residing at Woburn, and devoting himself to the improvement of his property in Bedfordshire, Devonshire, and London. In 1830 he rebuilt Covent Garden market at a cost of 40,000l. Like his brother, he interested himself in agriculture, and continued for some years the famous sheep-shearings at Woburn. In 1811 G. Garrard, A.R.A., painted a well-known picture of the ceremony, with portraits of the duke and the chief agriculturists of the day; an engraving of the picture was very popular. He was long president of the Smithfield Club, and became in 1838 a governor of the newly founded Agricultural Society, and one of the first vice-presidents. From 1813 to 1815 he was in Italy, and formed a notable collection of statuary, paintings, and other works of art, which found a home at Woburn, and are described in the ‘Woburn Abbey Marbles’ (1822, fol.). He helped to effect the drainage operations of the ‘Bedford Level’—works which were directed by Telford and the Rennies. The duke was also an enthusiastic naturalist. He made valuable experiments upon the nutritive qualities of grasses, and under his direction George Sinclair (1786–1834) [q. v.] published in 1816 his ‘Hortus Gramineus Woburnensis.’ Subsequently the duke turned his attention to the cultivation at Woburn of heaths, willows, pines, and shrubs, and catalogues of specimens planted at Woburn were published under his direction as ‘Hortus Ericæus Woburnensis’ (1825), ‘Salictum Woburnense’ (1829), ‘Pinetum Woburnense’ (1839), and ‘Hortus Woburnensis,’ describing six thousand ornamental plants and shrubs (see Agriculture and the House of Russell). He was created K.G. on 25 Nov. 1830. He died at the Doune of Rothie-Murchus, Perthshire, on 20 Oct. 1839, and was buried at Chenies on 14 Nov. His portrait was painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence and by Sir George Hayter. He was twice married: first, on 25 March 1786, to Georgiana Elizabeth, second daughter of George Byng, fourth viscount Torrington; she died on 11 Oct. 1801, leaving three sons—Francis, seventh duke; George William [q. v.]; and Lord John, the statesman. He married, secondly, on 23 June 1803, Georgiana (d. 1853), fifth daughter of Alexander Gordon, fourth duke of Gordon; by her he had seven sons and three daughters.

Lord John—a seven months' child—inherited his mother's delicacy of constitution. He was her favourite child, and always cherished the love for her which absorbed him in youth (SPENCER WALPOLE, i. 4). He was first sent to what he termed ‘a very bad private school,’ kept at Sunbury by Dr. Moore. On his birthday in 1803 he began to write a diary. In September 1803 he was sent to Westminster School, and was fag to Lord Tavistock, his eldest brother, who reproached himself in after life for having been a hard taskmaster, and thought this ‘the greatest sin he had to answer for.’ Being a delicate boy and unable to endure the rough fare and treatment, Lord John was taken from school in 1804. His education was continued under a tutor, Dr. Cartwright, at Woburn Abbey. He was diligent at his lessons, and he amused himself by writing verses and a farce called ‘Perseverance, or All in All.’ He performed in amateur theatricals; he wrote prologues to plays and spoke them, and often visited the theatres. Between 1805 and 1808 he was the pupil of Mr. Smith, vicar of Woodnesborough, near Sandwich. His health was not robust. Among the many visits which he never forgot was one to Fox and his wife in June 1806, when Fox was secretary for foreign affairs. He was barely fourteen when he wrote in his ‘Diary’: ‘What a pity that he who steals a penny loaf should be hung, whilst he who steals thousands of the public money should be acquitted!’ (Life, i. 22). In the same year Lord John went to Ireland to stay at Dublin Castle with his father, who was lord-lieutenant. The following year his father took him on a trip through Scotland, and there he made the acquaintance of Walter Scott, whom he terms in his ‘Diary’ ‘the minstrel of the nineteenth century,’ and who acted as his guide to the ruined abbey at Melrose. A quarter of a century afterwards Scott halted in London on his return from Italy to Abbotsford; his hours were numbered; it was erroneously supposed that pecuniary distress had aggravated his illness, and Lord John Russell, who was then in the government, sent a message delicately offering an advance from the treasury of any sum that might be required for Scott's relief.

Lord and Lady Holland took Lord John with them when they journeyed to Portugal in 1808. In their company he visited Lisbon, Seville, and Cadiz, and returned home in the summer of 1809. Thereupon Russell was sent by his father to the university of Edinburgh. He would have preferred Cambridge. He studied at Edinburgh from the autumn of 1809 till the summer of 1812, being lodged in the house of Professor John Playfair [q. v.],