William Howard Russell
CVO | |
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Born | Tallaght, County Dublin, Ireland | 28 March 1827
Died | 10 February 1907 London, England | (aged 79)
Occupation | Reporter, writer |
Genre | Journalism |
Spouse | Mary Burrows (died 1867) Countess Antoinette Malvezzi |
Children | 4 |
Sir William Howard Russell,
Career
As a young reporter, Russell reported on a brief military conflict between Prussian and Danish troops in Denmark in 1850.
Initially sent by the editor John Delane to Malta to cover British support for the Ottoman Empire against Russia in 1854, Russell despised the term "war correspondent" but his coverage of the conflict brought him international renown, and Florence Nightingale later credited her entry into wartime nursing to his reports. The Crimean medical care, shelter and protection of all ranks by Mary Seacole[2] was also publicised by Russell and by other contemporary journalists, rescuing her from bankruptcy.
Russell was described by one of the soldiers on the frontlines thus: "a vulgar low Irishman, [who] sings a good song, drinks anyone's brandy and water and smokes as many cigars as a Jolly Good Fellow. He is just the sort of chap to get information, particularly out of youngsters."
His dispatches were hugely significant; for the first time the public could read about the reality of warfare. Shocked and outraged, the public's backlash from his reports led the Government to re-evaluate the treatment of troops and led to Florence Nightingale's involvement in revolutionising battlefield treatment.
On 20 September 1854, Russell covered the battle above the
Following Russell's reports of the appalling conditions suffered by the Allied troops conducting the siege, including an outbreak of
Russell wrote about his meetings with Mary Seacole and wrote highly of Seacole's skill as a healer: "A more tender or skilful hand about a wound or a broken limb could not be found among our best surgeons."[5]
He spent December 1854 in Constantinople on holiday, returning in early 1855. Russell left Crimea in December 1855 to be replaced by the Constantinople correspondent of The Times.
In 1856, Russell was sent to Moscow to describe the coronation of Tsar Alexander II and in the following year was sent to India where he witnessed the final re-capture of Lucknow (1858).[6]
In 1861 Russell went to
Russell later accused fellow war correspondent Nicholas Woods of the Morning Herald of lying in his articles about the war[clarification needed] to try to improve his stories.
Later life
In the 1868 General Election, Russell ran unsuccessfully as a Conservative candidate for the borough of Chelsea.
He retired as a battlefield correspondent in 1882 and founded the Army and Navy Gazette.
Russell was knighted in May 1895. He was appointed a Commander of the
Russell died in 1907 and is buried in Brompton Cemetery, London.
Personal life
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He married twice. His first marriage was to Mary Burrows, of Irish origin. After she died in 1867, he married Countess Antoinette Malvezzi, an Italian, and they remained married until his death. They had two sons and one daughter, none of whom had offspring.
As a young man, Russell had had an affair with a German woman from Heligoland, Anna Catharina Oelrichs, with whom he had a son, William Russell, in 1863.[12] There are still Russells on Heligoland.
Legacy
Russell's dispatches via
Russell's war reporting (often in semi-verbatim form) features prominently in Northern Irish poet Ciaran Carson's reconstruction of the Crimean War in Breaking News (2003).
His biography was written by the first special correspondent of the Manchester Guardian[13] John Black Atkins.[14]
There is a bust of Russell in the crypt at St Paul's Cathedral.[15]
See also
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/24/the-special-correspondent/?_r=0' http://spartacus-educational.com/Jrussell.htm'
References
- ^ Smith, Hannah (19 June 2019). "Graves of Britain's Crimean War Dead Are Desecrated, Exploited and Forgotten". Pulitzer Center. The Times. Retrieved 1 April 2023.
Meanwhile, the journalist William Howard Russell sent dispatches back from Crimea to this newspaper, which are recognised as the world's first war correspondence. It was Russell's detailed account of the Charge of the Light Brigade, the British cavalry's doomed advance on Russian positions, that inspired Tennyson's eponymous poem.
- required.).
- ^ a b Sweeney, Michael S (2002), From the Front: The Story of War, National Geographic Society.
- ISBN 0-9515889-0-7.
- ^ "Mary Seacole by Jane Robinson". The Independent. 21 January 2005. Retrieved 24 February 2023.
- Times Literary Supplement, 23 February 2018, page 14.
- ^ "Russel", The Atlantic Telegraph, Atlantic cable.
- ^ Robert Dudley biography, Atlantic cable.
- ^ Russell, William Howard (1863). My diary North and South. Boston: T.O.H.P. Burnham.
- ^ "Court Circular". The Times. No. 36844. London. 12 August 1902. p. 8.
- ^ "No. 27467". The London Gazette. 22 August 1902. p. 5461.
- ^ ENK (28 November 2010). "Lord William Howard Russell". Helgoland-Genealogie (in German). Retrieved 18 July 2019.
- ISBN 978-0-313-29171-5.
- ^ Perry, James M. "The World's Greatest War Correspondent". Book review. The New York Times. Retrieved 28 October 2013.
- Sinclair, W.p. 465: London; Chapman & Hall, Ltd; 1909.
External links
- Works by or about William Howard Russell at Wikisource
- Works by William Howard Russell at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about William Howard Russell at Internet Archive
- Works by William Howard Russell at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)