Earl Russell of Meath. A member of the prominent Russell family, he was the third son of John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford. The first Earl was succeeded by his grandson the second Earl, the eldest son of John Russell, Viscount Amberley. He was one of the first peers to join the Labour Party and he held office under Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald as Under-Secretary of State for India from 1929 to 1931. He was childless and was succeeded in 1931 by his younger brother, the third Earl, the famous philosopher and Nobel Prize winner universally known as Bertrand Russell. When he
Bertrand Russell author, feminist and socialist campaigner, visited Russia independently at the same time; in contrast to his reaction, she was enthusiastic about the revolution. The following autumn Russell, accompanied by Dora, visited Peking (as it was then known in the West) to lecture on philosophy for a year. He went with optimism and hope, seeing China as then being on a new path. Other scholars present in China at the time included John Dewey and Rabindranath Tagore, the Indian Nobel-laureate poet. Before leaving China, Russell became gravely ill with pneumonia, and incorrect reports of his death were published in the Japanese