More on Bertrand’s Brother

More on Bertrand’s Brother Timothy J. Madigan (bio) Ruth Derham. To Be Frank: the Politics and Polemics of a Radical Russell. London: Spokesman, 2022. Pp. 206. isbn: 978-0-85124-9117; £16.99. In her magisterial biography of Frank Russell, Bertrand’s Brother: the Marriages, Morals and Misdemeanours of Frank, 2nd Earl Russell (reviewed in the summer 2021 issue of this journal) Ruth Derham brought back to life a figure all but forgotten, even by admirers of his brother, Bertrand. Frank Russell (1865–1931) was previously something of a cipher in the annals of the Russell family. He is a spectral figure in the various biographies of his younger brother, lurking in the background, referred to obliquely if at all even though Bertrand was almost 60 when Frank died. So theirs was a long as well as a complicated relationship (as is true of many siblings). I must admit that, before reading Derham’s biography, all I really knew about Frank was that he had taught Bertrand the rudiments of Euclidean geometry, had several complicated marriages and [End Page 190] divorces, served a prison term for bigamy, and was something like a real-life version of A. A. Milne’s Toad of Toad Hall—a blustering and reckless enthusiast for motor-cars with a proclivity for crashes. Derham did an exemplary job of showing what a complex man Frank was, as well as how intimately involved he was with many of the causes his brother is so identified with, including the promotion of birth control and women’s rights, political reform, freethought, and criticisms of organized religion. Now, in this companion volume, published by the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation’s Spokesman Books, Derham has collected a representative sample of Frank’s writings and speeches, which allow him to speak for himself. While his eccentricities are certainly in evidence—particularly his love for motoring and his dislike of speed limits on English country roads (see Chap. 5, “Automobilism”)—so too are his thoughtfulness and fearlessness, traits he certainly shared with his younger brother. In common with his brother as well, Frank had, to put it mildly, a complicated love life. This is dealt with in great detail in Bertrand’s Brother, including the convoluted reasons for his trial for bigamy in the House of Lords and subsequent imprisonment. In To Be Frank we get the chance to read his anguished pleas for the reform of British divorce law, which forced people to stay together who desired greatly to end their relationship. In a House of Lords debate on May 1, 1902 he argued: It often happens that persons make mistakes in their marriages. If we were all omniscient, no doubt we should all contract happy and successful marriages; but as it is, persons sometimes make mistakes, and in such contracts the Legislature ought, as far as possible, to enable the contracting parties to place themselves in the position they occupied before they made their mistake. I hold that the object of a well-thought-out system of divorce should be to provide a lawful method by which persons who contract such unfortunate alliances might free themselves. (P. 81) Alas, Frank was a voice crying in the wilderness, as divorce law would not be reformed until long after his death. Indeed, as Derham rightly points out, one reason why he has been so obscure for so long is due to the fact that he was often far ahead of his time: “Frank did not live to see many of his campaigns come to fruition and history is not so good at remembering such pioneers, especially when others took up the banner at a critical moment” (p. 1). But this collection shows us how in many ways it was Bertrand who took up the banner and did live to see many of his brother’s labours bear fruit. There is much fun to be had in reading To Be Frank, including humorous correspondence with George Bernard Shaw and George Santayana, a fascinating anecdote about knocking on the White House door when on a Grand Tour of America in 1886 and visiting with President Grover Cleveland (“whom I rather liked”) and his...

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