Francis Russell (1740 – 1 September 1795)Taylor, Pat. (1997) ''Hadley Wood: The Story of a Golf Club''. Hadley Wood: Hadley Wood Golf Club, p. 4. was an English lawyer, official and author.

Life

Russell was the youngest son of an attorney, town clerk in

Basingstoke Basingstoke ( ) is the largest town in the county of Hampshire. It is situated in south-central England and lies across a valley at the source of the River Loddon, at the far western edge of The North Downs. It is located north-east of Southa ...

, Hampshire, and a younger brother of the Rev. Sambro(o)ke Russell, the antiquarian. He was articled to his father, and then practised as a solicitor on his own. Around 1762

James Smith-Stanley, Lord Strange James Smith-Stanley, Lord Strange (1716–1771) was commonly known by that title, though neither he nor his father had any claim to it. He was the eldest son of Edward Stanley, 11th Earl of Derby, whose predecessor's heirs had used that courtesy ...

as its

Chancellor Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law cou ...

brought him in to do legal work for the

Duchy of Lancaster The Duchy of Lancaster is the private estate of the Monarchy of the United Kingdom, British sovereign as Duke of Lancaster. The principal purpose of the estate is to provide a source of independent income to the sovereign. The estate consists of ...

. Russell strived to put the records in order, and gave up other work. He held the title "His Majesty's Surveyor for the South part of the Duchy" (of Lancaster) when Enfield Chace was broken up in 1777. As part of the break-up, Russell was allowed to buy the freehold of 152 acres of land bordering on Beech Hill and Cockfosters Road in

Hadley Wood Hadley Wood is an affluent suburb in the north of Greater London, close to the border with Hertfordshire. It appears to be a stand-alone village surrounded by Green Belt land, however, under the Local Government Act 1972 it is part of the ...

. On this land he built Russell Mansion, later known as Beech Hill Park, and now used as the club house for Hadley Wood Golf Club.Clark, 1978, pp. 28-29. Subsequently, Russell was brought in to reorganise affairs of the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...

, through Thomas Orde Poulet. He was Secretary to the India Board, and a Fellow of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

and

Society of Antiquaries of London A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Societ ...

Works

Russell wrote ''A Short History of the East India Company'' (1793), which was published anonymously.

References

External links

1740 births 1795 deaths English solicitors English landowners 18th-century English historians Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London Hadley Wood {{England-law-bio-stub