Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 49.djvu/481

 good portrait, a miniature, belonged, according to Madden, at one time to Major Sirr.

[A short notice of Russell's life, for which the materials were furnished by Miss m'Cracken, was published in the Ulster Magazine of January 1830; and another by Samuel McSkimmin, the historian of Carrickfergus, in Frazer's Magazine of November 1836; the former very incomplete, the latter unsympathetic and inaccurate. Both have been superseded by the Life in Madden's United Irishmen, 3rd ser. vol. ii. A few additional particulars will be found in Miss m'Cleery's Life of Mary Ann M'Cracken in Young's Historical Notices of Old Belfast, 1896; Russell's correspondence is in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin.] 

RUSSELL or, THOMAS (1781?–1846), independent minister, was born at Marden, Kent, about 1781. His father and grandfather were members of the church of England, and he was himself confirmed in that communion, but was educated for the dissenting ministry at Hoxton Academy (September 1800–June 1803), under Robert Simpson, D.D. His first settlement was at Tonbridge, Kent, in 1803. In 1806 he became minister of Pell Street Chapel, Ratcliff Highway, where he was ordained on 5 Sept. His tastes were literary, and he edited a collection of hymns as an appendix to Watts; but his ministry was not popular. About 1820 he adopted the name of Russell, and obtained in 1823 the king's patent for the change. Soon afterwards he received from a Scottish university the diploma of M.A. On the closing of Pell Street Chapel a few years before his death, he became minister of Baker Street Chapel, Enfield, Middlesex. He was a Coward trustee, and (from 1842) a trustee of the foundations of Daniel Williams, D.D. [q. v.]; he was also secretary of the Aged Ministers' Relief Society. Contrary to the general sentiment of his denomination, he was a promoter of the Dissenters' Chapels Act of 1844 [see ]. He died at his residence, Penton Row, Walworth, Surrey, on 10 Dec. 1846. His sons, Arthur Tozer Russell [q. v.] and John Fuller Russell [q. v.], are separately noticed.

Under the name of Cloutt he published four sermons (1806–18), and a ‘Collection of Hymns,’ 1813, 12mo (17th edit. 1832, 12mo). His ‘Jubilee Sermon’ (1809) was roughly handled in the ‘Anti-Jacobin Review,’ November 1809, and he issued a defensive ‘Appendix,’ giving autobiographical particulars. In 1823 he began his edition of the works of John Owen, D.D. [q. v.], finishing it in 1826 in twenty octavo volumes, uniform with the ‘Life of Owen,’ 1820, 8vo, by William Orme [q. v.]; sets are usually completed by prefixing this ‘Life,’ and adding the seven volumes of Owen on Hebrews (Edinburgh, 1812–14, 8vo), edited by James Wright; but Russell's edition has been superseded by that of W. H. Goold, D.D. In 1828 he issued proposals for a series of ‘The Works of the English and Scottish Reformers;’ only three vols. 1829–31, 8vo, were published, containing works of William Tindal [q. v.] and John Frith [q. v.]

[Biographical Dict. of Living Authors, 1816, p. 67; Congregational Year Book, 1846, p. 177; Christian Reformer, 1847, p. 64; Jeremy's Presbyterian Fund, 1885, p. 208; Julian's Dict. of Hymnology, 1892.] 

RUSSELL, THOMAS MACNAMARA (1740?–1824), admiral, born about 1740, is described as the son of an Englishman who settled in Ireland, where he married a Miss Macnamara, probably a daughter and coheiress of Sheedy Macnamara of Balyally, co. Clare [see ]. On the death of his father when he was five years old, he is said to have inherited a large fortune, which, by the carelessness or dishonesty of his trustees, disappeared before he was fourteen. This was probably the cause of his going to sea in the merchant service. He does not seem to have entered the navy till about 1766, when he joined the Cornwall guardship at Plymouth, and in her, and afterwards in the Arrogant, served for nearly three years in the rating of ‘able seaman.’ He was then for about two years midshipman or second master of the Hunter cutter, employed on preventive service in the North Sea, and for about eighteen months as master's mate in the Terrible guardship at Portsmouth, with Captain Marriot Arbuthnot. He passed his examination on 2 Dec. 1772, being then described in his certificate as ‘more than 32.’ In 1776 he was serving on the coast of North America, and on 2 June was promoted by Rear-admiral Shuldham to be lieutenant of the Albany sloop, from which he was moved to the Diligent. On his return to England he was appointed to the Raleigh, with Captain James Gambier, afterwards Lord Gambier [q. v.], and was present at the relief of Jersey in May 1779, and at the capture of Charlestown. At Charlestown he was promoted by Arbuthnot on 11 May 1780 to the command of the Beaumont sloop, from which, on 7 May 1781, he was posted to the Bedford. Apparently this was for rank only, and he was almost immediately appointed to the Hussar of 20 guns, in which he cruised on the coast of North America with marked success, making several prizes.

On 22 Jan. 1783 he fell in with the French 32-gun frigate Sibylle, which had been