Russell, Sir William Howard (1820–1907), war correspondent, was born in March 1820 at Lily Vale, Jobstown, Co. Dublin, son of John Russell, a businessman from a prosperous Co. Limerick family, and Mary Russell (née Kelly), of Jobstown. While he was still very young, his father failed in business and took the family to Liverpool in the hope of regaining his fortune through another business venture. When a second son was born (1823), Russell was put in the care of his maternal grandparents at Lily Vale. His grandfather, Capt. Jack Kelly, a Roman Catholic, was master of the Tallaght foxhounds and obsessed with foxhunting; his estate was badly run owing to the amount of time he spent hunting. It would appear from Russell's own account of his childhood at Lily Vale that he enjoyed these years, and the eccentricities of Capt. Kelly, enormously. When he was six or seven he moved to the home of his paternal grandparents at 40 Upper Baggot St., this time because of the financial difficulties of Capt. Kelly. His paternal grandfather, William Russell, had been a member of the Moravian church in Dublin and displayed strong puritan tendencies. The two homes in which Russell lived in his early years were total contrasts but it would appear that he enjoyed the atmosphere of both households. He attended the school of Dr E. J. Geoghegan at Hume Street (1832–7) and entered TCD in 1838, but had little idea of what he wanted to do, considering both law and medicine. Failing to obtain a scholarship, he did not apply himself to his studies and left in 1841 without a degree.
In the same year his cousin Robert Russell, who worked for The Times, asked him for help in writing about the general election, and he later covered the ‘monster meetings’ of 1843. In 1844 he covered the trial of Daniel O'Connell (qv) and then worked as a parliamentary correspondent in London. While there he began studying for the bar, entering the Middle Temple as a student in 1846; he was called to the bar in 1850 but did not pursue a legal career with any seriousness. After some time with the Morning Chronicle (1845–8), he rejoined The Times and covered the war in Schleswig-Holstein in 1850. In February 1854, when war with Russia seemed inevitable, the editor of The Times, John T. Delane, obtained from Lord Hardinge, C.-in-C. of the British army, permission for a correspondent to accompany the Guards Brigade to Malta. Russell was asked to go and was promised that he would be home by Easter. After the declaration of war in March 1854, he went with the army to Varna and then to the Crimea itself, not returning home for nearly two years.
It is often stated that Russell was the first ever war correspondent; yet this is not true, as The Times had sent a correspondent to cover the Peninsular war in 1808, and the Morning Post sent one to Spain to cover the first Carlist war in 1837. Russell wrote damning accounts of the incompetence of the British general staff, and his dispatches from the Crimea had several serious results, ensuring his place in the history of war journalism. His criticism of the British commander, Lord Raglan, effectively destroyed Raglan's reputation, setting a precedent for later historians of the war, yet some of his comments were certainly unfair. There were serious questions raised regarding the possibility of Russell's dispatches providing information to the Russians – Tsar Nicholas I once stated: ‘We have no need of spies; we have The Times.’ It has also been suggested that his dispatches led directly to the fall of Lord Aberdeen's administration (January 1855), but this is only partly true. While Russell's reports and private letters to Delane undermined Aberdeen's position, they formed just one of several problems facing his administration. There is a common misconception that Russell was responsible for Florence Nightingale's medical mission at Scutari. It is true that he often described the plight of the sick and wounded and the almost total lack of medical services in Balaclava, but it was Thomas Chenery, The Times correspondent in Constantinople, who went to Scutari and wrote of the dreadful hospital conditions, resulting in Nightingale's mission.
Russell developed a very accurate style of reporting and also showed great literary skill. However, his accounts of the battles of the Alma, Balaclava, and Inkerman were written in a patriotic and emotive style, and never cast any doubt on the fighting abilities or bravery of the British soldier. His description of the stand of the 95th Highlanders at Balaclava, a ‘thin red streak topped with a line of steel’, has passed into common usage as ‘the thin red line’. It must also be said that Russell's dispatches from the Crimea had one great positive effect: the improvement of conditions in the army. He became the scourge of army inefficiency, and the general staff was forced to act and organise better supplies of food, clothing, and medical supplies. Perhaps the best tribute paid to Russell came from his fellow Irish correspondent, Edwin Lawrence Godkin (qv): ‘The real beginning of newspaper correspondence was the arrival of "Billy" Russell with the English army in the Crimea. He was then a man of mature age, had had a long newspaper experience, and possessed just the social qualities that were needed for the place. In his hands correspondence from the field really became a power before which generals began to quail’ (Ogden, Life and letters of E. L. Godkin, 102–3).
Russell continued to work for The Times after the Crimean war and his name became synonymous with war reporting. On his return from the Crimea, he was given an honorary doctorate by Dublin University (spring 1856). His next journalistic assignment was in India, where he reported on the brutal methods being used to suppress the mutiny. He was keenly interested in the volunteer rifle corps that were raised in 1859 because of mounting fears of French invasion, and wrote a training booklet for them, Rifle clubs and volunteer corps (London, 1859). He was one of the first officers of the 28th Middlesex (London Irish) Rifle Volunteer Corps when it was formed in 1860, and in the same year founded the Army and Navy Gazette, becoming its editor.
In March 1861 he travelled to America to report on the outbreak of the American civil war. Visiting the southern states, he criticised the system of slavery and, after witnessing the defeat of the union army at the first battle of Bull Run (21 July 1861), commented on the lack of military organisation in the north. As a result of these reports he became the focus of much public outrage in both north and south; fearing for his own safety, he returned to England (April 1862). In 1866 he covered the ‘seven weeks war’ between Austria and Prussia and was present at the battle of Königgrätz. He stood for parliament as a conservative candidate for Chelsea in 1869 and, although defeated, remained a supporter of the party. In 1870 he reported on the Franco–Prussian war and was present at the battle of Sedan and the fall of Paris.
A friend of the prince of Wales (later Edward VII), he accompanied him during his tour of the near east (1869) and India (1875–6). He was also close friends of both Thackeray and Dickens. Knighted in 1895, he was made CVO in 1902. He died 10 February 1907 at 202 Cromwell Road, Kensington, and was buried in Brompton cemetery. In 1909 a memorial bust by Bertram Mackennal was unveiled in the crypt of St Paul's cathedral; the accompanying plaque described him as ‘the first and greatest of war correspondents’.
Russell published numerous books, mostly based on dispatches from the various wars that he had reported. They included The war: from the landing at Gallipoli to the death of Lord Raglan (2 vols, London, 1855–6), The British expedition to the Crimea (London, 1858), The battle of Bull Run (New York, 1861), My diary in the east, during the tour of the prince and princess of Wales (London, 1869) and The great war with Russia (London, 1895). During the 1880s he began writing his ‘Retrospect’, a manuscript account of his early life in Dublin, which was consulted by John B. Atkins when writing The life of Sir William Howard Russell (2 vols, London, 1911). It has since disappeared, except for a few typewritten pages, and all later biographies of Russell have had to rely on Atkins's work.
Russell married (September 1846) Mary (d. 1867), daughter of Peter Burrowes (qv). They had two sons and two daughters. In February 1884 he married Countess Antoinette Malvezz; there were no children.