Sir Thomas Wallace Russell, 1st Baronet (28 February 1841 – 2 May 1920), was an Irish politician and agrarian agitator. Born at

Cupar Cupar ( ; ) is a town, former royal burgh and parish in Fife, Scotland. It lies between Dundee and Glenrothes. According to a 2011 population estimate, Cupar had a population around 9,000, making it the ninth-largest settlement in Fife, and the ...

Fife Fife ( , ; ; ) is a council areas of Scotland, council area and lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area in Scotland. A peninsula, it is bordered by the Firth of Tay to the north, the North Sea to the east, the Firth of Forth to the s ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

, he moved to

County Tyrone County Tyrone (; ) is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the thirty-two traditional counties of Ireland. Its county town is Omagh. Adjoined to the south-west shore of Lough Neagh, the cou ...

at the age of eighteen. He was secretary and

parliamentary agent Parliamentary agents are solicitors who are licensed (together with the firms they belong to) by the Houses of Parliament in the United Kingdom to draft, promote or oppose private bills. Private bills are a specific class of legislation promoted ...

of the Irish

temperance movement The temperance movement is a social movement promoting Temperance (virtue), temperance or total abstinence from consumption of alcoholic beverages. Participants in the movement typically criticize alcohol intoxication or promote teetotalism, and ...

and became well known as an anti-alcohol campaigner and proprietor of a Temperance Hotel in

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

.Maume, Patrick: ''The long Gestation, Irish Nationalist Life 1891-1918'', "Who's Who" p.242, Gill & Macmillan (1999)

Career

He unsuccessfully contested Preston in 1885 as a Liberal. However, he opposed

William Ewart Gladstone William Ewart Gladstone ( ; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British politican, starting as Conservative MP for Newark and later becoming the leader of the Liberal Party (UK), Liberal Party. In a career lasting over 60 years, he ...

Home Rule Home rule is the government of a colony, dependent country, or region by its own citizens. It is thus the power of a part (administrative division) of a state or an external dependent country to exercise such of the state's powers of governan ...

policy and was elected to the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

of the

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the union of the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland into one sovereign state, established by the Acts of Union 1800, Acts of Union in 1801. It continued in this form until ...

as a

Liberal Unionist The Liberal Unionist Party was a British political party that was formed in 1886 by a faction that broke away from the Liberal Party. Led by Lord Hartington (later the Duke of Devonshire) and Joseph Chamberlain, the party established a political ...

in 1886 for South Tyrone. He served between 1895 and 1900 as Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board in the Unionist administration of

Lord Salisbury Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (; 3 February 183022 August 1903), known as Lord Salisbury, was a British statesman and Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United ...

Thomas Wallace Russell Vanity Fair 24 March 1888

However, Russell's views on Home Rule underwent a change around the turn of the century and he gradually became a critic of Unionist policies in Ireland. From 1900 put himself at the head of the ''Farmers and Labourers Union'', an

Ulster Ulster (; or ; or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional or historic provinces of Ireland, Irish provinces. It is made up of nine Counties of Ireland, counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United Kingdom); t ...

tenant-farmer protest movement demanding compulsory land purchase, similar to the land and labour movement in the south. His 1901 book ''Ireland and the Empire'' was an attack on the Irish

agrarian system An agrarian system is the dynamic set of economic and technological factors that affect agricultural practices. It is premised on the idea that different systems have developed depending on the natural and social conditions specific to a particula ...

. From 1902 to 1903 he was a key Ulster farmer representative at the Dublin " Land Conference" which resulted in the passing of the

Land Purchase (Ireland) Act 1903 The Land Acts (officially Land Law (Ireland) Acts) were a series of measures to deal with the question of tenancy contracts and peasant proprietorship of land in Ireland in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Five such acts were introduced by ...

. This defused the Protestant tenant farmers' revolt. Russell continued to represent Tyrone South in Parliament. In

1906 Events January–February * January 12 – Persian Constitutional Revolution: A nationalistic coalition of merchants, religious leaders and intellectuals in Persia forces the shah Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar to grant a constitution, ...

, supported by Lindsay Crawford and his

Independent Orange Order The Independent Loyal Orange Institution is an offshoot of the Orange Institution, a Protestant fraternal organisation based in Northern Ireland. Initially pro-labour and supportive of tenant rights and land reform, over time it moved to a mo ...

while at the same acknowledging his debt to Catholic tenant farmers, he was re-elected as an "Independent Unionist", one of several candidates referred to as "

Russellite Unionist The Russellite group were the followers of Thomas Wallace Russell, an Irish political leader of the early twentieth century. Russell was the Liberal Unionist MP for South Tyrone. He and some followers left the party in February 1904. They favou ...

". Russell was vice-president of the Irish Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction (DATI), in which capacity he displaced

Horace Plunkett Sir Horace Curzon Plunkett (24 October 1854 – 26 March 1932), was an Anglo-Irish agricultural reformer, pioneer of agricultural cooperatives, Unionist MP, supporter of Home Rule, Irish Senator and author. Plunkett, a younger brother of J ...

as head of the Department in 1907. He disapproved of Plunkett's cooperative

Irish Agricultural Organisation Society The Irish Agricultural Organisation Society (IAOS) was an agricultural association in Ireland which advocated, and helped to organise, agricultural cooperativism, including mutual credit facilities. From its establishment by Sir Horace Plunkett ...

involving itself in the affairs of farmers, and ended DATI's help for the society. He rejoined the

Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. For example, while the political systems ...

and stood as a Liberal candidate at the general election in January 1910, when he lost his seat to the Unionist Andrew Horner.''Parliamentary Election Results in Ireland, 1801-1922'', edited by B.M. Walker (Royal Irish Academy 1978), pp. 376–378 Russell does not appear to have contested the December 1910 general election, but in 1911 he won a by-election in Tyrone North, a seat he held until the constituency was abolished in 1918. Russell was sworn of the

Irish Privy Council His or Her Majesty's Privy Council in Ireland, commonly called the Privy Council of Ireland, Irish Privy Council, or in earlier centuries the Irish Council, was the institution within the Dublin Castle administration which exercised formal execut ...

in 1908 and created a

Baronet A baronet ( or ; abbreviated Bart or Bt) or the female equivalent, a baronetess (, , or ; abbreviation Btss), is the holder of a baronetcy, a hereditary title awarded by the British Crown. The title of baronet is mentioned as early as the 14th ...

, of Olney in the

County of Dublin County Dublin ( or ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland, and holds its capital city, Dublin. It is located on the island's east coast, within the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster. Until 1994, County Dubli ...

, in 1917. He retired from politics in 1918 and died in Dublin on 2 May 1920, aged 79, when the baronetcy became extinct.

Arms

Notes

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Russell, Thomas Wallace 1841 births 1920 deaths Russell, Sir Thomas Wallace, 1st Baronet Irish Presbyterians Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for County Tyrone constituencies (1801–1922) UK MPs 1886–1892 UK MPs 1892–1895 UK MPs 1895–1900 UK MPs 1900–1906 UK MPs 1906–1910 UK MPs 1910–1918 Liberal Unionist Party MPs for Irish constituencies Irish Liberal Party MPs Members of the Privy Council of Ireland Activists for Irish land reform People from Cupar 19th-century Presbyterians Russellite Unionist MPs