Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Russell, John (1842-1876)
RUSSELL, JOHN, Viscount Amberley (1842–1876), eldest son of John, first earl Russell [q. v.], by his second wife, was born on 10 Dec. 1842. He was educated at Harrow, Edinburgh, and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he went into residence in 1862, but did not graduate. Returned as a liberal to parliament for Nottingham on 11 May 1866, he made a promising maiden speech in the debate on the second reading of the Parliamentary Reform Bill of the following year (25 March); but on the dissolution of 1868 he declined to stand again for Nottingham, unsuccessfully contested south Devonshire, and retired from public life. He died of bronchitis at his seat, Ravenscroft, near Chepstow, on 9 Jan. 1876, and was buried at Chenies.
He married, on 8 Nov. 1869, at Alderley, Cheshire, Katharine Louisa (d. 28 June 1874), sixth daughter of Edward John, second baron Stanley of Alderley, by whom he had, with other issue, John Francis Stanley, who succeeded his grandfather in 1878 as second Earl Russell.
Amberley held advanced views in religious matters, and in ‘An Analysis of Religious Belief’ (London, 1876, 2 vols. 8vo) made a somewhat crude attempt to disengage the universal and permanent from the particular and transitory elements in religion. He was also author of a paper ‘On Clerical Subscription in the Church of England’ (reprinted from the ‘North British Review’), Edinburgh, 1864; London, 1865.
[G. E. C[okayne]'s Complete Peerage; Burke's Peerage; Ann. Reg. 1876, ii. 129; Athenæum, 1 July 1876.]