Quick Facts
Biography
Major-General Lord George William Russell GCB (8 May 1790 – 16 July 1846) was a British soldier, politician and diplomat.
Life
Upon gaining the rank of Lieutenant in the 1st Dragoon Guards, Russell was appointed aide-de-camp (ADC) to Sir George Ludlow on his Copenhagen Expedition in 1807. During the Peninsular War he fought in the Battle of Talavera on 27 July 1809 where he was wounded. He was then ADC to General Thomas Graham in 1810 and fought at the Battle of Barossa in 1811. He was ADC to Viscount Wellington (later the Duke of Wellington) in 1812 and again in 1817, when the Duke was Ambassador in Paris.
The second son of John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford and brother of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Lord John Russell, he sat as Member of Parliament (MP) for Bedford from 1812 until 1830. He was invested as a Companion, Order of the Bath (CB) in 1831. He held the office of Minister to Lisbon in August 1833, the office of Minister to Württemberg in November 1833 and the office of Ambassador to Berlin in 1835. He was invested as a Knight Grand Cross, Order of the Bath (GCB) in 1838 and gained the rank of major-general in November 1841.
Russell married Elizabeth Anne Rawdon, a direct descendant of the House of York through her grandmother Elizabeth Rawdon, Countess of Moira, and the couple were the parents of Francis Russell, 9th Duke of Bedford, Lord Arthur John Edward Russell and Odo Russell, 1st Baron Ampthill.