This page contains images and brief descriptions of Bertrand Russell's immediate family, viz. his wives and children.

3_alys.jpg

Person(s) in Photograph: Alys Russell (Pearsall Smith)

Description:  Russell first met the American Quaker, Alys Pearsall Smith, when he was seventeen years old. Russell fell in love with the puritanical, high-minded Alys and in marrying her in December 1894 he distanced himself from the world of Pembroke Lodge. He was once attracted to her younger sister Mary, who later married the distinguished art historian Bernard Berenson.

Archive Box Number: RA3 Rec. Acq. 941

3_alys_2.jpg

Person(s) in Photograph: Alys Russell (Pearsall Smith)

Description: 
This is a photograph of Bertrand Russell's first wife, Alys Pearsall Smith. The picture is subtitled "'Sister Hannah' (Alys W. Pearsall Smith) 1892".

Archive Box Number: RA3 Rec. Acq. 678

Date: 1892

Description: 
This is a photograph of a newspaper clipping from the London Times announcing his marriage to Alys Pearsall Smith (his first wife).

Archive Box Number: RA3 Rec. Acq. 941

Date: Dec. 13, 1894

3_br_al.jpg

Person(s) in Photograph: Bertrand Russell, Alys Russell

Description:  The marriage between Russell and Alys Pearsall Smith in 1894 was ended by separation in 1911. In 1921 they divorced.

Archive Box Number: 2,3

Date: 1895

 

3_d_j_k.jpg

Person(s) in Photograph: Dora Russell, John Russell, and Katharine Russell

Archive Box Number: 6,3

3_br_j_k.jpg

Person(s) in Photograph: Bertrand Russell, John Russell, Katharine Russell

Archive Box Number: 6,6

3_br_car.jpg

Person(s) in Photograph: Bertrand Russell

Archive Box Number: 6,6

3_peter.jpg

Person(s) in Photograph: Patricia ("Peter") Russell

Description:  When Russell's marriage with Dora broke up, he took as his third wife in 1936 the attractive Oxford undergraduate, Patricia ("Peter") Spence. She had been his children's governess in the summer of 1930.

Archive Box Number: 6,1

Date: c. 1935

3_br_con.jpg

Person(s) in Photograph: Bertrand Russell, Conrad Russell

Description:  Caught in the United States by the outbreak of war, Russell was employed in 1941 by the Philadelphia millionaire, Dr. Albert Barnes. The lectures he gave for the Barnes Foundation would be published as A History of Western Philosophy. This photograph of Russell and his son Conrad was taken in August 1942: by the end of that year Barnes and Russell had quarrelled irrevocably. Conrad is now a distinguished historian and a leader in the House of Lords.

Archive Box Number: 6,23

Date: Aug. 8, 1942

Person(s) in Photograph: Bertrand Russell, Patricia Russell, Conrad Russell

Description:  Russell, his wife Peter and son Conrad in Cambridge in April 1945. Trinity College made amends for its expulsion of Russell in 1916 by offering him in 1944 a five-year lectureship and fellowship. The photo is from a set used to illustrate Russell's article, "The Problems of Peace" (B&R C45.06).

Archive Box Number: 6,21

3_br_ed.jpg

Person(s) in Photograph: Bertrand Russell, Edith Russell

Description:  Russell with his fourth wife Edith (Finch). They had known each other since 1925. Edith had lectured in English at Bryn Mawr College, near Philadelphia.

Archive Box Number: 4,6

Date: c. 1950

3_br_e_2.jpg

Person(s) in Photograph: Bertrand Russell, Edith Russell

Description:  Russell and Edith at their wedding on 15 December 1952.

Archive Box Number: 4,8

Date: Dec. 15, 1952

 Person(s) in Photograph: Bertrand Russell, Patricia Russell, Kate Russell, John Russell

 Description:  Kate, Russell, Peter and John in Redwood National Park, 1939. In spring 1939 Russell moved to Santa Barbara to take up a professorship at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Archive Box Number: 6,25

Date: c. 1939

 



Search Engine:    

Boolean:     Case:  


Site created and designed by Paul Barrette, 1997.