Adeline Mary Russell

Artist Info

Adeline Mary Russell1852 - 1920, London

Russell [née Somers-Cocks], Adeline Mary, duchess of Bedford (1852–1920), penal reformer, was born on 24 May 1852, the second daughter of Charles Somers Somers-Cocks, third Earl Somers (1819–1883) and his wife, Virginia (d. 1910), daughter of James Pattle. Her education and upbringing were directly supervised by her powerful and devoted mother. On 24 October 1876 she married George William Francis Sackville Russell (1852–1893), styled the marquess of Tavistock, who sat as a Liberal member of parliament for Bedfordshire (1875–85). They lived at their London home, 37 Chesham Place, and their country home, Oakley House, Oakley, Bedfordshire.

Adeline Russell's husband succeeded his father as tenth duke of Bedford in 1891. He was said to be a reclusive and dictatorial man with a penchant for high formality, and their two years at Woburn Abbey were dogged by his ill health. On 23 March 1893 he died of diabetes. The couple were childless. Benjamin Jowett, master of Balliol College, Oxford, where her husband had been an undergraduate, was a friend and correspondent of Adeline in the early 1890s. He urged her not to shrink from the responsibilities of her rank but to see these as God-ordained and requiring harmonious co-operation between all classes to secure moral and social improvement. On the death of her husband she left Woburn Abbey to live for the rest of her life at Woodside House, Chenies, Buckinghamshire.

The duchess of Bedford became one of those aristocratic and middle-class Victorian and Edwardian women who distinguished themselves in charity work, one of the few fields of public activity open to women. Early in her married life she led a movement to rescue women who were street dwellers or prostitutes around Victoria Station, London. At this time she was closely involved with the Associated Workers' League, which was concerned with the well-being of women at work.

In 1895 the Gladstone committee on prisons recommended that there should be a female presence at the London-based Prison Commission headquarters. This body governed all English and Welsh prisons, and the new chairman, Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise, did not want salaried professional women there. Therefore he sought a female volunteer adviser and consultant for this role. In addition, in the late nineteenth century there was a strong movement to provide ‘lady visitors’ for female prisoners and to befriend and educate women prisoners and plan their aftercare, a function seen as very important by Victorian penologists who believed women were especially vulnerable to male predators when released friendless into society.

From 1897 the duchess of Bedford, assisted by Lady Battersea, visited Aylesbury convict prison for women fortnightly. They placed young female convicts in ‘homes’ designed to be less institutional than the refuges previously used for women released on parole licence (‘ticket-of-leave’). She also visited the State Inebriate Reformatory opened at the prison in 1902 and was closely involved in founding the borstal wing of Aylesbury prison, opened in 1908. In 1900 she became the first president of the national Lady Visitors' Association, a position she held until her death. The association aimed to secure lady visitors at each prison holding women, to befriend, assess, and educate them, and to provide aftercare.

Ruggles-Brise selected the duchess of Bedford as consultant and worked closely with her until 1920. First she advised on controversial issues regarding custody of women. For example, in 1919 she chaired an extensive inquiry into allegations of gross neglect of mothers in labour in Holloway prison. Her report was direct and critical. Second, she gave advice on new projects for women prisoners: for example, plans for aftercare of borstal girls were laid at her house in the late nineteenth century, and the 1897 prison commissioners' report extensively discussed her ideas on ‘homes’ for young women offenders. Third, she published on the moral and occupational training of women prisoners in such journals as Nineteenth Century and After and gave addresses to international congresses of women. Last, she intervened in the matter of hunger-striking suffragettes in prisons between 1908 and 1914. She visited these and put it to them that they were committing sin in so risking their lives, and was thus identified by the suffragette movement as a collaborator with penal repression. They particularly resented her public glossing of the suffering inflicted by force-feeding in the prisons.

During the First World War the duchess of Bedford worked on a joint committee of the Red Cross and the order of St John of Jerusalem to provide nursing care for wounded service personnel. Between 1918 and 1920 she helped to establish a Sunshine Home for blind babies at Chorleywood near her home. She died at Mexborough House, Dover Street, London, on 12 April 1920, of influenza, and was buried on 17 April at Chenies, Buckinghamshire. She was a devout Anglican Christian all her life. Although prominent in London high society for over forty years, she was uncomfortable and unconfident in these circles. However, as Jowett had counselled, she put aside her reticence to further her social-work objectives. She was skilled at reconciling sharply differing opinions to secure a workable compromise. She was a good linguist and painter and a keen gardener.

Bill Forsythe

Sources

The Times (14 April 1920), 14g, 16e · The Times (15 April 1920), 18d · M. Richardson, Laugh a defiance (1953) · TNA: PRO, HO45–10429–A53867; HO45–9750–A58684; P.Com7/57; P.Com7/174 · Burke, Peerage · GEC, Peerage · E. Ruggles-Brise, The English prison system (1921) · L. Zedner, Women, crime and custody in Victorian England (1991) · ‘Directors of convict prisons’, Parl. papers (1897–1920) [annual reports] · W. Forsythe, Penal discipline, reformatory projects and the English prison commission (1991) · S. McConville, English local prisons, 1860–1900: next only to death (1995) · L. Radzinowicz and R. Hood, A history of English criminal law and its administration from 1750, rev. edn, 5: The emergence of penal policy in Victorian and Edwardian England (1990) · private information (2004) [archivist, Woburn Abbey] · E. Abbott and L. Campbell, The life and letters of Benjamin Jowett, 2 vols. (1897) · L. Trowbridge, Memories and reflections (1925) · CGPLA Eng. & Wales (1920)

Likenesses

E. Roberts, pastel drawing, Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire · G. F. Watts, oils, Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire

Wealth at death

£104,863 18s. 8d.: probate, 6 May 1920, CGPLA Eng. & Wales

Bill Forsythe, ‘Russell , Adeline Mary, duchess of Bedford (1852–1920)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 [http://proxy.bostonathenaeum.org:2113/view/article/48836, accessed 8 Aug 2013]

Adeline Mary Russell (1852–1920): doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/48836