Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell married Alys Pearsall Smith on 13 December, 1894. The marriage began to fall apart from 1901 and they began to live separately sometime after that. Ultimately, they divorced sometime in late September 1921. They did not have any children.

Next on 27 September, 1921, Russell married Dora Black, a British author, feminist and socialist campaigner. At the time of the marriage Dora was six months pregnant.

Their eldest child, John Conrad Russell, 4th Earl Russell, was born on 16 November 1921. They also had a daughter, Katharine Jane Russell, born on 29 December 1923. The marriage ended in a divorce in 1935.

Bertrand Arthur William Russell was born on 18 May 1872 at Ravenscroft, Trellech, Monmouthshire into an aristocratic family. His grandfather, John Russell, served twice as the Prime Minister of Great Britain and was later given the title of 1st Earl Russell by Queen Victoria.

Bertrand’s father, John Russell, the Viscount Amberley, was known for his unorthodox views. He actively supported birth control and women’s suffrage. He was an atheist and willed his sons to be brought up as agnostic.

His mother, Viscountess Katherine Louisa Amberley, the daughter of 2nd Baron Stanley of Alderley, was also a suffragist and an early proponent of women's rights. They had three surviving children, John Francis, Rachel and Bertrand.

By January 1876, young Bertrand had lost his parents as well as sister, Rachel. Thereafter, Bertrand and Frank were placed under the guardianship of their paternal grandparents and began to live with them at Pembroke Lodge, Richmond Park. Unfortunately, his grandfather too passed away in 1878.

As Bertrand grew up, his grandmother employed tutors to teach him at home, but sent Frank to school. As a result, he spent his adolescent years devoid of the company of other children.

In 1896, Russell began his career as a lecturer of German social democracy at the London School of Economics. Sometime now, he also started an intensive study on foundation of mathematics; the fruit of which was published in 1898 as ‘An Essay on the Foundations of Geometry’.

Later in 1899, he was appointed lecturer at the Trinity College, Cambridge. In the following year, he went to Paris to attend International Congress of Philosophy. There he met Italian mathematicians, Giuseppe Peano and Alessandro Padoa.

Russell was much impressed by their work on set theory. Therefore, on returning to England, he began to study Giuseppe Peano’s work, ‘Formulario Mathematico’ (Formulation of mathematics). In 1901, it led to his discovery of ‘Russell’s Paradox’.

However, it took a few more years to fully develop the concept. Finally in 1903, he presented the paradox in his well-known book, ‘The Principles of Mathematics’. Then in 1905, he published another of his major works, ‘On Denoting’.

In 1910 he became a lecturer in the University of Cambridge. In the same year, he started publishing ‘Principia Mathematica’, written with Whitehead in three volumes; the last volume being published in 1913. This, along with the earlier work on the same topic, made him world-famous.

When in August 1914, the United Kingdom entered the First World War; Russell joined the pacifist group that was spearheading a movement against it and was convicted under the Defence of the Realm Act 1914. As a result of this, he was dismissed from Trinity College in 1916.

He was also fined £100. He refused pay it, hoping that he would be sent to jail because of non-payment. However the authorities raised the money by auctioning his books and so he was allowed to go free.

In 1917, he played a major part in organizing a socialist convention in Leeds and his lectures there were highly received.

Next in 1918, he began lecturing publicly against UK’s invitation to USA to join the war on its side. This time, he was jailed for six months. He used the time to write his book, ‘Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy’.