Lord William Russell

:"Not to be confused with the 17th-century Whig politician, William Russell, Lord Russell."Lord William Russell (20 August 1767 – 5 May 1840), a member of the British aristocratic family of Russell and longtime Member of Parliament for Tavistock, did very little to attract the public attention after the end of his political career until, in 1840, he was murdered in his sleep by his valet, François Benjamin Courvoisier.

His life

Russell was the posthumous child of Francis Russell, Marquess of Tavistock, who in turn was the eldest son of John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford. He was the youngest brother of Francis Russell, 5th Duke of Bedford, and John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford, and the uncle of Francis Russell, 7th Duke of Bedford.

Russell married Lady Charlotte Villiers, the eldest daughter of George Bussy Villiers, 4th Earl of Jersey, on 11 July 1789; they had seven children together. Lady Charlotte died in 1808. As was mentioned in the evidence at the trial of his murderer, Russell had a locket containing some of his wife's hair which he valued greatly.

"The Times", reporting on proceedings where Russell's eligibility to register as a voter in Middlesex and Surrey was challenged in 1836, included the information that he spent much time abroad, living in hotels when in England. However, by 1840 Lord William was residing in the London house where he was murdered.

Political career

As with many members of the Russell family, notably his nephew the future Prime Minister Lord John Russell (who was Colonial Secretary at the time of the murder), Lord William was a Whig politician.

Russell represented the county of Surrey in the House of Commons from 1789 until he was defeated in the 1807 election. Russell held junior ministerial office in the Ministry of all the Talents, being appointed a Lord of the Admiralty in 1806 and retaining the post until the fall of the ministry in 1807.

Russell, taking advantage of the fact that different constituencies polled on different dates, remained in Parliament by being elected for the Russell family pocket borough of Tavistock. He represented that constituency from 1807 until he retired in 1820 and then again from 1826 until he again retired from Parliament in 1831.

Lord William continued to support the Whig Party after he left the legislature. "The Times" reported in 1837 that few Whigs supported the government at the Great Middlesex Meeting, "inasmuch as not a man of them, barring the young Lord who had taken the chair, and his aged uncle Lord William Russell, ever showed fight at all".

Death and investigation

On the morning of 6 May, 1840, Russell's housemaid, Sarah Mancer, discovered the lower floors of the house in disarray. Fearing that a robbery had taken place in the night, she went to Courvoisier's room and found him already dressed. Upon seeing the state of the house, he agreed that a robbery must have occurred; Courvoisier and Mancer then proceeded to Russell's bedchamber, where Courvoisier immediately went to open the shutters as he always did. Thus it was Mancer who first noticed that Russell was dead; his throat had been cut. The police were summoned; Courvoisier drew their attention to marks of violence upon the door to his pantry, asserting that this was where the robbers had entered the house.

The police, however, came quickly to the conclusion that the "robbery" had been staged in order to draw suspicion away from some member of the household. Numerous small gold and silver articles, as well as a ten-pound banknote, were found to be missing; some of the articles were soon discovered wrapped up in a parcel inside the house, which was curious – a thief would have carried them off straightaway rather than leave them behind. The discovery of several more gold articles, as well as the banknote, hidden in the wainscoting and in Courvoisier's pantry cemented their suspicion of the valet. Additionally, a screwdriver in his possession was found to match the marks on the pantry door as well as marks left by the forcing of the silverware drawer.

It appeared that Courvoisier's guilt still would not be proved conclusively; however, an inventory of the house turned up several items of silverware also missing. Silver matching their description was located in a French hotel in Leicester Square; when this news was conveyed to Courvoisier by his attorney, he immediately confessed to both the thefts and the murder.

The legal interest in the case deals with the delayed discoveries of property that Courvoisier had hidden outside the house. Courvoisier's lawyer, Charles Phillips, was doing well on the paucity of evidence that pointed at Courvoisier's guilt, and had actually hinted at the guilt of another servant in the house (a maid). When the new evidence came out Phillips asked his client if he planned to now change his plea from not guilty to guilty. Courvoisier insisted on maintaining the not guilty plea, and said he expected Phillips to continue the defense that way. Still uncertain, Phillips approached the judge on the case for guidance. He was forcibly told he could not ask for such advice. So Phillips continued the defense, knowing that his client was guilty, and trying to blame the crime on the maid. It led to a considerable amount of public criticism of Phillips after the trial ended.

It came out in Courvoisier's confession that Russell had discovered his silverware thefts and ordered Courvoisier to turn in his resignation from the household. Rather than lose his position, Courvoisier decided to murder Russell in order to conceal the matter.

Courvoisier had reportedly read William Harrison Ainsworth's novel "Jack Sheppard" in the days leading up to the crime, and several news reports implied that that novel's glorification of the criminal life had led him to commit the murder. The concept was not pursued in Courvoisier's court defence, however.

Courvoisier was executed at Newgate Prison on 6 July 1840. One of the huge crowd who attended was the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray who wrote an anti-capital punishment essay entitled, "Going to See a Man Hanged" about it.

References

* "The Parliaments of England" by Henry Stooks Smith (1st edition published in three volumes 1844-50), second edition edited (in one volume) by F.W.S. Craig (Political Reference Publications 1973) "out of copyright"
* "The Times", editions of 29 October 1836 (Middlesex registration), 1 November 1836 (Surrey registration) and 26 January 1837 (Great Middlesex Meeting).
* David Mellinkoff, "The Conscience of a Lawyer" (St. Paul, Minnesota: West Publishing, Co., 1973), 304p. A study of the legal problems facing Courvoisier's barrister, Charles Phillips, in the defense of his client.
* Michael Diamond, "Victorian Sensation", (Anthem Press, 2003) ISBN 1-84331-150-X, pp.154-158. An account of Courvoisier's trial.

External links

* [http://www.exclassics.com/newgate/ng629.htm Information on the case] in The Newgate Calendar
* [http://www.thetablet.co.uk/1840/police_intelligence.shtml Information on the case] in "The Tablet"