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The Earl Russell
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Official portrait, 2023
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| Member of the House of Lords | |
Lord Temporal | |
| as an elected hereditary peer 19 June 2023 – present | |
| Preceded by | The 15th Viscount Falkland |
| Personal details | |
| Born | John Francis Russell (1971-11-19) 19 November 1971 (age 52) |
| Nationality | British |
| Political party | Liberal Democrats |
| Parents |
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| Occupation | Freelance photographer |
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John Francis Russell, 7th Earl Russell (born 19 November 1971), is a British hereditary peer, photographer, and Liberal Democrat politician.
The younger son of Conrad Russell, 5th Earl Russell, a professor of history at Yale University, and his wife Elizabeth Franklin Sanders, Russell is also a grandson of the philosopher Bertrand Russell and a great-great-grandson of John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, a Liberal Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He was educated at the William Ellis School, Highgate.[1]
As a teenager, he took adventure training holidays at Ty'n y Berth, a Wide Horizons centre in Wales, and he later became an advocate of providing disadvantaged children with such opportunities.[2]
Russell works as a freelance photographer, specializing in "political photography, event photography, charity commissions and landscapes". In 2006, he was in-house photographer for Total Politics magazine and also works for the Liberal Democrats, the London Wildlife Trust, other charities, and individuals. He publishes work at Zenfolio.[3]
Russell became chairman of the Lewisham Liberal Democrats and went on to serve as a Liberal Democrat councillor for Forest HillonLewisham Borough Council from 2006 to 2010, chairing its Overview and Scrutiny committee. In 2012 he was his party's candidate for the Greenwich and Lewisham seat on the London Assembly.[4]
In 2006, Russell joined the board of Wide Horizons and chaired it from 2012. It went into administration and ceased trading in 2018.[2][5]
On 17 August 2014, on the death of his older brother Nicholas Russell, 6th Earl Russell, Russell succeeded as Earl Russell and Viscount Amberley, both in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.[1]
In the 2017 general election, he stood for the Liberal Democrats in Lewisham West and Penge, but Labour held the seat. In 2022 he stood unsuccessfully for election to Lewisham London Borough Council.[6]
In June 2023, Russell entered the House of Lords after winning a whole house by-election to fill a vacancy among the excepted hereditary peers.[7]
| Peerage of the United Kingdom | ||
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| Preceded by | Earl Russell 2014–present |
Incumbent |
| Viscount Amberley 2014–present | ||
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
| Preceded by | Elected hereditary peer to the House of Lords under the House of Lords Act 1999 2023–present |
Incumbent |
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Current Liberal Democrat members of the House of Lords
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| Hereditary peers |
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| Life peers |
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