Bertrand Russell humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought". Bertrand Russell was born on 18 May 1872 at Ravenscroft, Trellech, Monmouthshire, into an influential and liberal family of the British aristocracy. His parents, Viscount and Viscountess Amberley, were radical for their times. Lord Amberley consented to his wife's affair with their children's tutor, the biologist Douglas Spalding. Both were early advocates of birth control at a time when this was considered scandalous. Lord Amberley was an atheist and his atheism was evident when he asked the philosopher John Stuart Mill to act as Russell's secular godfather. Mill died the year after Russell's birth,
John Russell, 4th Earl Russell on 28 August 1946 to Susan Doniphan Lindsay, daughter of the poet Vachel Lindsay. They had three daughters: Lady Felicity Anne Russell (born 2 September 1945), Lady Sarah Elizabeth Russell (born 16 January 1946), and Lady Lucy Catherine Russell (21 July 1948 – 11 April 1975). Neither Sarah or Lucy married or bore children; Felicity had one daughter, Rowan. Like their father and mother, the three daughters suffered from serious mental health challenges. Lucy, who was Bertrand Russell's favourite grandchild, died from self-immolation, at the age of 26, in the forecourt of a church near Penzance, ostensibly protesting in the