Sir Thomas Wallace Russell, 1st Baronet

Sir Thomas Wallace Russell, 1st Baronet PC (28 February 1841-2 May 1920), was an Irish politician.

Russell was born at Cupar, Fifeshire, Scotland, but moved to County Tyrone at the age of eighteen. He was secretary and parliamentary agent of the Irish temperance movement and became well-known as a speaker. He unsuccessfully contested Preston in 1885 as a Liberal. However, he opposed William Gladstone's Home Rule policy and was elected to the House of Commons as a Liberal Unionist in 1886. He served between 1895 and 1900 as Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board in the Unionist administration of Lord Salisbury.

However, Russell's views on Home Rule underwent a change around the turn the century and he gradually became a critic of Unionist policies in Ireland. His 1901 book "Ireland and the Empire" was an attack on the Irish agrarian system. From 1902 to 1903 he was a member of the Dublin Land Conference which resulted in the passing of the Land Purchase Act of 1903. Russell continued to represent Tyrone South in Parliament until 1910, when he resigned. The following year he was elected for Tyrone North, a seat he held until the constituency was abolished in 1918. Russell was also vice-president of the Irish Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction. He was sworn of the Irish Privy Council in 1908 and created a Baronet, of Olney in the County of Durham, in 1917.

Russell died in May 1920, aged 79, when the baronetcy became extinct.

References

* [http://www.leighrayment.com/Baronetage.htm Leigh Rayment' s baronetage page]
* [http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Sir_Thomas_Wallace_Russell Sir Thomas Wallace Russell, 1st Baronet, at 1911encyclopedia.org]